THESIS PART TWO B

Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Chapter 7 DOCUMENTARY RECONSTRUCTION IN JFK The previous chapter offered an account of the referential functions of the text in relation to dramatic reenactment of historical events, and the utilization of genre conventions in the dramatic representation of actuality. This chapter is concerned with the documentary reenactment of actual events in Oliver Stone’s JFK, and the integration of actuality footage into the film. Dramatic reenactment in historical film narrative strives to achieve authenticity in the representation of actual historical figures and events, but documentary reconstruction appropriates actual identities and provides a representation of the body that is a substitute for the actual identity, minimizing the viewer’s awareness of the enactment. In chapter 5 it was demonstrated that conventional documentary reconstruction avoids disclosure of identity when representing public figures that are recognizable. The integration of documentary reconstruction into Stone’s narrative, however, challenges the viewer to distinguish between actuality footage and reconstruction, and situates both the actuality footage and the reconstruction within a dramatic reenactment. JFK offers an example of actuality images, documentary reconstruction and dramatic reenactment interacting within a single text that is renowned for its obtrusive narrativization of an actual event. The analysis of JFK will identify the various referential capacities of the audio/visual text, and will establish the importance of form and genre as determining factors on interpretive strategies. The most notable example of actuality images that are integrated into narrative form is the Zapruder film, which is included in Stone’s rendition of the courtroom evidence. The conjunction of actuality images with a dramatic reenactment provides an opportunity to examine the narrativization of the actuality image, and the effect that this particular use of the image has on the interpretation of the Zapruder film. The aims of this chapter are to observe the boundaries within the text, to identify the cultural references made by the text, and to evaluate the notions of rhizome, and the permeability of boundaries (as outlined in the first part of the thesis), as a method of analysis for the convergence of form and genre encountered in JFK. The analysis of JFK will be restricted to the portions of the film that employ documentary reconstruction and actuality footage, as the implications of dramatic reenactment have been considered in the previous chapter. The first section will examine the functions of the images appropriated by stone in the social realm, and the second will evaluate the evidentiality of the Zapruder film, and the capacity of the image to embody actual events. The notion of rhizome will be applied to the text in the third section, where the function of boundaries within the text will be analyzed. Finally, the use of actuality images to form connections between the viewer and actuality will be considered. 239 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK 7.1 Contested History: JFK and the American Institution Locating the Narrative in History The actual event occurred on November the 22nd. 1963. President Kennedy, the youngest President in the history of the United States of America, was assassinated while driving in a motorcade along Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The ‘story’ was broadcast as a mediated account that was constructed according to the conventions of the journalistic institutions of the time. Little ‘live’ television coverage was available at the time, but an amateur filmmaker, Abraham Zapruder, was able to film the passing entourage as the assassination occurred. In JFK Stone offers a reconstruction of the assassination as the pivotal motif of the film, combining his reconstruction with the Zapruder film. His inclusion of President Eisenhower’s speech at the outset of the film warning against a “military-industrial complex” and its potential danger to liberty, postulates a historical perspective that contradicts the conventional perspective of American military and industrial powers (fig.7.1.1): Fig. 7.1.1: President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation. President Eisenhower: We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone, more than the net income of all… Voiceover commentary: January 1961. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation. President Eisenhower: Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal Government We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. 1 1 Transcribed from the opening scene of JFK. 240 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Stone then leads in to the film with a montage of images that were pertinent to the political environment of the Kennedy Presidency, integrating home movies of the Kennedy family, television news images and other documentary images of the era. The introductory segment, which runs behind the opening titles of the film, is presented in the style of classical, expositional documentary. The ‘voice of God’ commentary determines the content of the images, enabling the opening verbal essay to give the impression of being an authoritative, institutionally condoned statement of historical fact. The documentary-style preface to the narrative posits a scenario where Kennedy is portrayed as being opposed to the CIA in the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion, and that Kennedy privately claimed that “the CIA tried to manipulate him into ordering an all-out American invasion of Cuba.” 2 He is also depicted as being less than enthusiastic about the war in Vietnam: Unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support, I don’t think the war can be won out there… In the final analysis it’s their war. They’re the ones who have to win or lose it. 3 Stone’s decision to open the film with this speech instantly launches the ideological hypothesis of the film, that Kennedy was a victim of the self-same military-industrial complex. Stone’s use of this particular segment of Kennedy’s statement, however, is challenged by Steel, who states that Stone simply leaves out the next sentence of Kennedy's statement, in which he added: “But I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake.” 4 When Kennedy’s speech at the American University in Washington (where he supports the notion of peace with the Soviet Union), is juxtaposed with Eisenhower’s farewell address, the alleged motivation for Kennedy’s assassination is established as being the threat he posed to the profit-making potential of Eisenhower’s ‘militaryindustrial complex’. Stone’s introductory commentary skillfully implies a hypothetical, if not entirely accurate combination of political and military circumstances that encourage the viewer to assume some reciprocity between the events portrayed in the documentary introduction and the motivation behind the actual assassination. 2 ibid. ibid. 4 Steel, 1992. 3 241 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.1.2: Cuban Prisoners from the Bay of Fig.7.1.3: Military archival film of nuclear Pigs invasion. tests. Figure 7.1.4: Titles used to communicate Figure 7.1.5: Martin Luther King. historical information. Figure 7.1.6: Kennedy and Kruschev. Figure 7.1.7: Fidel Castro. An analysis of JFK cannot overlook the conspicuous appropriation of classical documentary technique in this opening sequence. The introduction to the film is a documentary, albeit a documentary that posits a left-wing perspective on political events. There is no dramatically enacted content, the identity of the political figures in the images is authentic, and the historical-political commentary is substantially 242 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK accurate, although undoubtedly biased toward a particular reading of events (figs. 7.1.2-7). Stone’s contention is the suggestion that President Kennedy intended to pull out of the Vietnam War if elected to a second term. This notion has been challenged by Turner, who maintains that Kennedy intended to exit Vietnam only in the case of victory. Kennedy’s statement transcribed above tends to support Stone’s contention, however Turner cites numerous sources to the contrary.5 Stone, however, makes no attempt at objectivity, but is unabashed in positing an unconventional, subjective interpretation of history. Martin Medhurst, in his analysis of JFK, suggests that Stone’s history accords with postmodern historical practice. He puts forward two models of history, one, the traditional approach, states that “an external reality exists and it is the task of historians to recreate or reanimate that reality through symbolic means.” The second historical approach is: …Not to reproduce some external reality – as though that were possible – but rather to create that reality through critical engagement with the various symbolic constructions of the past. These constructions are then brought into dialogue with other “histories” in an ever-swelling chorus of voices. History … is nothing more or less than a rhetorical construction. 6 The type of history exhibited by Stone’s film is of the second kind, where the presumption of a single interpretation of historical data is critically appraised, or, in this case, contested. Several media theorists and historians have pointed to JFK as an example of a postmodern narrativized history. 7 Proponents of modernism in the field of history have eschewed the use of narrative as a means of representing actual events, but postmodern theorists have recognized the fallacious claims of objectivity and positivism. White affirms Stone’s approach to history as a valid methodology: … The historical event, traditionally conceived as an event which was not only observable but also observed, is by definition an event that is no longer observable, and hence cannot serve as an object of knowledge as certain as can a present event which can still be observed. This is why it is perfectly respectable to fall back upon the time-honored tradition of representing such singular events as the assassination of the thirty-fifth president of the United States as a story and to try to explain it by narrativizing (fabulating) it – as Oliver Stone did in JFK. 8 He then goes on, however to point out the problematic aspects of the representation of events in narrative form: … The issues raised in the controversy over JFK could be profitably set within a more recent phase of the debate over the relation of historical fact to fiction peculiar to the discussion of the relation between modernism and postmodernism. For literary (and for that matter filmic) “modernism” (whatever else it may be) marks the end of storytelling … After modernism, when it comes to the task of 5 Turner, 1995. See also Steel, 1992, Loebs, 1993, and cf. Holland 1998. Medhurst, 1993, p.129. 7 Burgoyne, 1996, White, 1996, Medhurst, 1993. 8 White, op.cit., p.22. 6 243 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK storytelling, whether in historical or literary writing, the traditional techniques of narration become unstable – except in parody. 9 In JFK Stone attempts a conjunction of audio/visual texts that, by implication of their combination, creates a narrative from divergent sources. As White observes, however, this narrativization recognizes the representational function of these texts in the film, and highlights the speculative nature of any attempt to construct a rigid version of a past event. The multiple strains of narrative running through the film, and the impossibility of constructing a cohesive account of the historical events bear witness to the fragmentation of narrative in JFK. Stone’s history becomes one voice in a melange of voices, several within the text, and many in extra-textual discourse concerning the Kennedy assassination. Stone’s interpretation of history, then, is no less ‘valid’ than an official version of history, one that draws no connections between the Kennedy assassination and a “military-industrial complex”. As a rhetorical construction its social validity is not commensurate to the institutionally condoned rhetoric of the Warren Commission, in that Oliver Stone has no governmental or institutional authenticity as a historian, but despite this the film has a measure of authority that originates from the books which provided the inspiration for the film. 10 Jim Garrison was a New Orleans District Attorney, and as such his account of the circumstances surrounding the assassination deserves a measure of institutional recognition, and any rejection of Stone’s account as being “an act of execrable history” does not take the contribution of Garrison to the content of JFK into consideration. 11 The authenticity of any version of history is amongst the more significant questions that are raised by the film. Is a historical record made valid by the social institutions that condone it? Does Stone’s film employ conventions of classical documentary genre in order to create an impression of authenticity to which it has no claim? JFK demands attention as a social document for no other reason than the fact that it poses these questions forcefully, and has instigated a prolonged debate surrounding the right of a Hollywood director to put forward a historical claim that conflicts with governmental accounts, and infringes on the sacrosanct territory of the historian. The Rhetorical Function of images in JFK The viewer of JFK is exposed to a hybridized rhetoric that combines Stone’s strident criticism of the military and Government intelligence establishments, as evident in his prior work, with Garrison’s accusations of anticommunist fascism in the highest levels of government. 12 This rhetoric, which is in contrast to the official account of the assassination as a one-man operation, has brought about a contested account of the historical event. The illusion of a unified historical account has been challenged, and this challenge has underlined the uncertainty of all historical texts. 9 ibid., p.24. Garrison, 1990 and Marrs, 1989. 11 Will, cited in Medhurst, op. cit., p.128. 12 The sentiments of Stone in opposition to U.S.A. government intelligence organizations are particularly evident in Salvador (1986). 10 244 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Walkowitz posits the ideological and political motivations for such an indeterminate history: Historians’ flirtation with if not embrace of postmodernism gives them some responsibility for the crisis in history. The focus on multiple voices and unstable texts in the postmodern move or linguistic turn undermines the public’s yearning for stability. Indeed, I think critics and the press have misread its corollary … to suggest that the postmodern historian makes no truth claims. Most, I believe, would emphasize the multiplicity and contested nature of historical voices, focusing on narratives as constructed interpretations by historical actors and analysts. Actually, the press and the politicians may fear most the idea that people might question their authority. In practice, particular versions of the past, both in the past and in the present, are authorized simply by those with greater access to power, but that does not make them “truer.” 13 Stone’s oppositional interpretation of history provides an alternative voice that adopts an air of authority reminiscent of the propagandistic styles that had been utilized by the very institutions that he accuses of complicity in the assassination. He opposes the official history by imitating institutional methods of representation, and by marshalling the vast economic resources of the Hollywood film industry as a means to counterbalance the institutional power of government. Stone turns the conventions of the dominant social order back on itself by adopting an air of omnipotent authority that has been previously associated with governmental and corporate authority. In his introduction there is no acknowledgment of dissention, no discussion of the conventional reading of the history of the Kennedy era that overlooks any conflict between Kennedy and the military intelligence fraternity. JFK deconstructs the myth of the ‘great American dream,’ in which the government is assumed to be beyond reproach and to have only the best intentions toward the American people. This myth is replaced by the dark and distrustful myth of conspiracy, in which the government works covertly and illegally to assure the economic security of a minority of influential conspirators. In the midst of these conflicting myths, and set at a time in which the trust of the American people for their government was destabilized by a series of assassinations, the film posits a transition from the acceptance of institutional virtue to the suspicion of conspiratorial subterfuge. Stone confirms that he intended the film to stand as an oppositional account of the assassination: G.S. People took the film to be your version of history, that you literally believed every frame to be The Truth; that in fact you were presenting Garrison’s imaginative reconstruction of events. O.S. I’m glad you noticed. I’ve always said the film was a countermyth to the myth of the Warren Commission because a lot of the original facts were lost in a very shoddy investigation. 14 13 14 Walkowitz, 1998, p.54 Oliver Stone, in interview with Gavin Smith, 1994, p.39. 245 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK The positivism of Stone’s account is profoundly influenced by the society of its origin. His choices to co-produce and direct the film also reveals a desire to respond to the official social account of the assassination, and the film stands as a potent public rebuttal of the findings of the Warren Commission. The Kennedy assassination has been exposed to a variety of discursive constructions, with the sub-text of American patriotism never far from the surface, as semi-hysterical criticism of ‘conspiracy nuts’ and attacks on the film JFK as “an act of execrable history and contemptible citizenship” have created an atmosphere of enforced conformity. 15 Loebs goes as far as to equate Stone’s selective quotation of Kennedy concerning Vietnam with a Hitlerian tenet, claiming that “Stone … follows Hitler's maxim, as stated in Mein Kampf, that ‘the masses fall victim more easily to a big lie than a small one.’” 16 The many connections of JFK with journalism, political debate and sub-cultural fascination with governmental conspiracy are as consequential to the interpretation of the text as is the content itself. In isolation from these extra-textual connections Stone’s film appears to be a restricted, positivistic attempt to delimit the possible explanations of the assassination. When the history of the account and the context of its creation are considered, however, its purpose as a ‘counter-myth’ is clarified. The irony of journalistic criticism of the film, however, is that this obvious ploy from Stone has apparently been overlooked. His mythic reconstruction has been interpreted as a kind of desecration of the ‘American Dream,’ where the apotheosis of American society is momentarily loosed from its position of sacrosanct privilege and must face the hard light of critical scrutiny, as does every other government and institution. Those who would maintain this privilege are offended at the apparently unpatriotic motivation behind criticism of the American institutional hierarchy, and seek to disparage any attempt to challenge the status quo. Against such a backdrop the film takes on an entirely different meaning. It is a reply to the ‘new conservatism’ of the Reagan era, and an interrogation of the very ideals underlying American culture. Garrison’s (Costner’s), closing speech to the jury highlights the centrality of this notion to the film: The ghost of John F. Kennedy confronts us with the secret murder at the heart of the American dream. He forces on us the appalling questions: of what is our constitution made? What is our citizenship, and more, our lives worth? 17 There is no justification for the journalistic oversight of Stone’s satirical (and even cynical), parody of American nationalistic propaganda. His historical account mimics the strident tones of the television news and documentary of the Kennedy era, and integrates news reports of the period into the film so as to emphasize this reference. His construction of history is a parody of the positivism of post-war American film and television, and refers to the naivety of the post-war American society that embraced such propagandistic rhetoric. 15 George Will, journalist, cited in Petras, 1992, p.15. Loebs, 1993, p.92. 17 Jim Garrison’s summary speech to the court, transcribed from JFK. 16 246 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK The persuasive rhetoric of JFK is assisted by the apparent positivism of the documentary introduction, and the interpretive strategy that is induced by such classical documentary techniques is attributable to the boldness of the political and economic claims that are present from the outset of the film. This mode of discourse implies defined interpretive strategies as the “supposedly authoritative yet often presumptuous off-screen narration” encourages viewers to accept the claims of the voice of social authority. 18 But in this case, which voice of authority is the viewer to accept? The film stands in direct opposition to the governmental and military institutions that deny any knowledge of conspiratorial activity, branding such theories of the assassination as paranoia, and as Kopkind observes: Reasonable columnists like Tom Wicker (who was in Dallas that day), cool commentators like Cokie Roberts (whose father, Hale Boggs, was a member of the Warren Commission) and what seems like the unanimous journalistic establishment are ready to burn every print of JFK if they could because of the damage a countermyth, an alternative paradigm, is thought to do to the national spirit and, I guess, the collective will. Monolithic myths--the manifest decency of America, the infallibility of the church, the existence of historical truth--are more fascistic than any transient leader. In that case, a little narrative pluralism can be truly subversive. Now, it may be hard for some to admit that Oliver Stone, with $40 million per film at his disposal and virtually unlimited media access, can be a subversive force, but he has done a great service by recasting the idols in the heart of the temple. 19 The viewer with any social knowledge of the Kennedy assassination is left pondering the contrasting accounts of history, and JFK becomes one more chapter in the ongoing accrual of textual data concerning the actual event. The extensive conspiracy discourse throws the certainty of the government explanation of the event into doubt, rendering the inscription of American history ambiguous through the presence of multiple accounts, each claiming authenticity, each providing evidence to support its arguments. The American cultural construct of history has, in this case, been amended and redefined by one historical film and multiple texts contesting the official version of events. 20 The multiple historical voices that have been discussed above are observable in the combination of content in the documentary introduction. The inclusion of television news reports, family film of the Kennedys and the Zapruder film of the assassination in JFK has challenged the boundary of documentary and fiction by their proximity to the historical narrative of the dramatic reenactment. These segments of audio/visual text are not the result of Stone’s film making activities, but have a textual existence prior to JFK. Their appropriation by Stone for use in this film amounts to a claim of documentary authenticity, with the images evoking a specific interpretive strategy. The opening montage is a multiplicity of political, military, and private images that are combined in one text, and are subservient to the voiceover commentary that conjoins this disparate collection of visual data. The images are, however, not subsumed under the classical documentary umbrella, but maintain a distinct formal identity despite the intrusive commentary. Each image is 18 Nichols, 1983, p.17. Kopkind, 1992. 20 Staiger, 1996, p.48, cites a Washington Post survey in 1991, in which 56 percent of the American population accepted the theory of a conspiracy, and only 19 percent accepted the official position. 19 247 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK identifiable by its content, and its form as a home-movie, television news broadcast, or military archive film. The slightly blurred Kennedy home-movie is easily distinguishable from the stark black and white footage of the Bay of Pigs invasion, or of the television news coverage of speeches and public events. Camera movement, frame composition and the modes of address adopted by the people represented in the images identify the distinct genre of each component of the montage. The formal characteristics of the images indicate their origin as news footage, as archival film or as home movie. The interpretive strategies that are applied by viewers to each of these genres are confused by the rapid transition between styles, and the resulting conflict of interpretive frames has brought criticism from some journalists and film critics. 21 The fast editing between reconstruction and archival footage is, according to White, a device in which “all of the events depicted in the film … are presented as if they were equally real, or as if they had ‘really happened’”. 22 The reconstruction of the assassination is juxtaposed with the Zapruder film as a means of postulating a particular narrativization of events in the courtroom scene, and this is plainly a visual accompaniment to Garrison’s verbal rendition of his construction of events. The introductory sequence, however, offers no such narrative context, but utilizes documentary conventions and continuity editing to imply cohesion between the disparate images. Being confused by the ontological variance of images in JFK and accepting the film as a ‘reality,’ however, are two entirely different interpretations of the film. Inherent in the assumption of viewer susceptibility to such manipulation is the inference that viewers are incapable of distinguishing between actuality images and dramatic of enactment or documentary reconstruction. As Staiger observes, the viewer interpretation of the text is the final measure of the ‘power of the text’ to deceive: [T]he issue is that the mixing may confuse the audience as to what is documentary evidence versus what is speculation or hypothesis by the filmmaker. It is supposed that audiences will be less capable of judging the validity of the interpretation if they are confused into perceiving the re-enactment as an authentic ‘trace’ of the real. What is at stake is the credibility of the image as it relates to spectatorial understanding of the technology of the camera, for even if the meaning of the image is ambiguous … that is quite a different matter than its credibility claims if it is a reenactment rather than an inscription of the original event. Audience perception and memory are what matters. 23 It is the variable capacity of viewers to distinguish between actuality images and documentary reconstruction that defines the interpretive frame that will be applied to the image, and in the case of JFK this becomes particularly significant as the hypothetical is situated alongside the “inscription of the original event”. An experienced viewer (discussed in chapter 4.2), is able to identify characteristics of the image that suggest a particular ontological function according to the conventions of genre. A naïve viewer, however, may not have the experience of genre conventions that would enable identification of image characteristics. It is the 21 See White, 1996, pp.18-22, for a succinct summary of articles critical of JFK. ibid., p.20. 23 Staiger, op. cit., p.44. 22 248 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK characteristics of the image that allow the experienced viewer to locate the image within a genre grouping, and apply the interpretive strategy appropriate to that genre. The combination of genres in close proximity and rapid transition only serve to underline the contention of this thesis, that the narrativized text is partially composed of actuality, but that the actuality can never be complete in a textual representation. JFK as Cultural Transmission By combining actuality images with reconstruction of actuality Stone has adopted a strategy that is central to all language and narrative. The cultural transmission of narrative does not consist of the recounting of sensory experiences, but, rather, the recitation of narratives that have been received from others. In supporting this view of narrative Deleuze and Guattari state: “We believe that narrative consists not in communicating what one has seen but in transmitting what one has heard, what someone else said to you. Hearsay.” 24 The important distinction here is between communication and transmission. Communication assumes that the communicator has seen an event, which is then communicated to another, whereas transmission involves a distribution of an account. A narrative is conveyed from person to person, and is adapted, altered and personalized as it is transferred. Each recounting of the narrative brings new interpretive strategies to the account, and discards others. Any re-telling of a story is a response to the interpretive activity of reception and adjoins the interpretive strategies of the storyteller to the story. To repeat a narrative is to participate in its construction as the transmitter of the story takes on the function of a mediator of the account. Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of transmission requires some qualification, in that there is invariably an infusion of personal experience into the process of transmission. Narrative does, to some extent, include ‘what one has seen,’ but this is more often than not integrated into the transmission of an existing narrative. Whether transmitting previously constructed narrative, or communicating accounts of a sensory experience, the process of mediation is influenced by a complex system of narrative conventions. The communication of personal (sensory) experience also involves a transmission, not of the content of the account (which originates from the experience), but of the expression of the account, or the means of narrativization applied to the experience. Hjelmslev’s binary opposition of the linguistic functions of expression and content separates the composition of narrative from its content, dividing the method of depicting events from the physical and temporal ordering of actual events. 25 This demarcates the ‘way of telling’ from ‘what is told,’ and this distinction can be observed in the introductory sequence of JFK through its construction according to classical conventions of documentary narrative form. In this case the mode of expression is relayed from previous viewing experiences and historical precedents of documentary production. The ‘way of telling’ is transmitted from other texts partly by the fragments of text that comprise the introduction to JFK, and by the conventions that are evoked by the classical voiceover. The content, however, bears little resemblance to any content conventionally associated with that mode of expression. 24 25 Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.76. Hjelmslev, 1969, and 1970. See the discussion on Hjelmslev’s expression and content in chap. 2.1. 249 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Various accounts of the Kennedy assassination have been transmitted through multiple forms of mediation, and the event has become an archetypal example of the transmission of narrative accounts and the social management of myth and history. In terms of content, the Government account differs vastly from Stone’s, and Garrison’s version of events in the documentary introduction. The later scenes of the film, however, demonstrate other modes of representation of the actual. The documentary introduction is followed by a documentary reconstruction of the assassination (which reoccurs later in the film as illustrative images in the courtroom scene, which will be analyzed in the forthcoming section, 7.3). Following the documentary reconstruction of the assassination, the subjectivity of the film is focalized through the character of Jim Garrison and his experience subsequent to the event. He sees the television report of Kennedy’s death while sitting in a bar, and the viewer is subjectively positioned in order to identify with Garrison’s experience of media reception (see figures 7.1.8-9), with news reports being included as television screen images that are situated within the television frame as ‘a frame within a frame,’ (see fig. 7.1.10), and that occupy the entire frame of the film when Walter Cronkite announces the death of the President (see fig. 7.1.11). The reception experience as portrayed in JFK underlines the significance of response as determined by social experience and affiliation. The character of Guy Bannister, former FBI agent, is portrayed as being elated at Kennedy’s demise, as he proposes a toast in Napoleon’s Bar, and pours his drink on the floor in protest against “all those Cubans that bastard condemned to death and torture.” Garrison, on the other hand, declares that he is “ashamed to be an American” on that day. The catalysts for these varied responses are the snippets of television news that permeate the film and accentuate the part played by the media in establishing the public perception of events. The information broadcast to the public in 1963 concerning the assassination was constructed by television broadcasters. Stone’s contention is that these news reports were a part of an orchestrated ‘cover up’ of the actual events. He includes them as a means of reconstructing the order of information dissemination that occurred at the time: The whole first 45 minutes of JFK is based on television perceptions of Kennedy’s death at Dealey Plaza. If you look closely at the movie, it’s all television, television, people are reacting. It’s very interesting, because that’s the way we got it back in ’63. And the rest of the movie is the tearing down of that veil. And the technique of the movie is done in that deconstructionist style – what is reality? Question it. Think for yourself. You never know. Everything is subject to manipulation: your life, country, murder. 26 The inclusion of the televised representation of actuality bears with it an insinuation that the cultural construct of reality is determined by mediated accounts of actual events, and that media can substantially remodel the collective perception of the world. The images in the film progress from a focalization of Jim Garrison’s subjectivity, through a series of television images that increase in size until at the moment of Kennedy’s death the entire screen is occupied by the television image. The convergence of form and genre is complete at this point. The subjectivity of the film then becomes a collective consciousness, as the television image is used as a 26 Oliver Stone in interview with Kreisler, 1997, p.7. 250 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK device to move through space and time, from one bar room to another, and amongst a variety of viewers. The television image is used in Stone’s film to represent the cultural construct of reality, and is then deconstructed by the fragmentation of images, most notably in the court room scene (analyzed in section 7.3). Fig. 7.1.8: Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), watches the television news in a New Orleans bar. Fig. 7.1.9: Crowds watch the television news in the bar, a representation of Garrison’s subjectivity. Fig. 7.1.10: Walter Cronkite announces the shooting of the President. The television image is represented within its frame. 251 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.1.11: Walter Cronkite, overcome with emotion at the news of President Kennedy’s death. The image occupies the full screen of Stone’s film. Fig. 7.1.12: The image cuts to a barman watching television news in another bar. The television frame is used to represent common cultural experience of texts, which is integrated into the dramatic enactment. Myth Against Myth Stone’s narrative amounts to mediated manipulation of historical images in order to convey a particular version of history. The opposition of a counter-myth against the original emphatic findings of the Warren Commission has taken the form of Stone’s ‘equal but opposite’ retort. Stone’s film does not maintain a positivistic approach to history throughout, but complicates the processes whereby historical ‘facts’ are collected, combined and recorded. The act of narrative construction is overtly displayed in the courtroom scene, as Garrison attempts to piece together an explanation of divergent evidence and eclectic personal testimony into a cohesive, unitary circumscription of the events surrounding the assassination. The evidence does not provide a comprehensive account of actual events, but confronts Garrison (and the viewer), with “a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, inside an enigma.” 27 The 27 Transcribed from JFK, spoken by the character, David Ferrie. 252 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK search for historical proof as portrayed in JFK does not prove to be forthcoming in substantial evidence, but, rather, highlights the inaccessibility of historical data. Witnesses mysteriously die before the trial, others are unwilling to testify, and the notion of historical ‘truth’ is addressed only in Garrison’s courtroom arguments as an attempt to provide a narrative construction of the uncertain conglomeration of actual events and testimony. Here lies the distinction between Stone’s film representation, and Garrison’s efforts to create empirical proof of political conspiracy. Garrison’s concern with having a legal case to be heard, with providing evidence that would convict Clay Shaw, eludes the lack of any conclusive proof of conspiracy, but assumes the validity of the narrative construction of events. Stone, on the other hand, emphasizes the process of constructing of a narrative account. Garrison attempts to prove the existence of a conspiracy, whereas Stone illustrates the impossibility of proving or disproving the conspiratorial claims. The deconstruction of historical narrative is a prominent theme of JFK. Stone, by not assuming the immediacy of historical reality, but by putting forward an alternative account of history, challenges the way in which this particular piece of history has been socially constructed. Although he clearly adopts the subjectivity of Jim Garrrison for the focalization of this account there remains a distinction between the reflexive awareness demonstrated by Stone’s insistence on the inability to secure any evidence, and the paranoiac search for witnesses and informants that accompanied Garrison’s preparation for the trial. Gavin Smith’s interview with Stone reveals the extent to which he relies on the character of Garrison as a subjective point of reference: G.S. I felt that all of the flashbacks and speculative scenarios originate in Garrison’s subjective imagination, that we see his visualization of all the accounts given to him by the other characters. O.S. That’s absolutely true. That was the only way I could use some of these speculative facts. I’m not sure that Ruby went to the hospital and got the bullet. Some people say he did, one person saw him, but in the film that was a moment that Garrison was imagining. The tramps also. Garrison was a highly paranoid man by the time this story had unfolded. I thought I had the right to do that, and I thought it was clearly subjective. 28 The utilization of Garrison’s subjectivity does not, however, absolve Stone from all responsibility for the inclusion of such tenuous material, factually questionable assumptions and possibilities pieced together from fragments of hearsay evidence. Underlying the explicit subjectivity of Garrison there is the implicit subjectivity of Oliver Stone, and choices of selection, construction of narrative and implications of conspiracy and paranoia are as much the result of Stone’s decision to include them in the film as they are Garrison’s, and Marr’s choice to include them in a book. One cannot simply conflate the subjectivity of filmmaker and novelist, as Nichols does, by nominating “Stone or Garrison (we cannot always say which),” thereby inferring a combined subjectivity in the film. 29 It is Stone’s choice to represent the subjectivity of Garrison, and therefore his creative control over the filmic 28 29 Oliver Stone, interviewed by Gavin Smith, 1994, p.39 Nichols, 1994, p.128. 253 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK representation of Garrison involves an authorial selection of any subjective speculation by Garrison. The question remains, however, as to what extent JFK is a biography of Jim Garrison, or a social/political statement by Oliver Stone that uses Garrison as a character caught up in the paranoia of conspiracy theory. The above citation of Nichols reminds us that despite Garrison being the prevalent subjectivity of the film, that Stone decides on the constituents of that subjectivity, and must bear the responsibility for that representation. In the search for proof of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy both Garrison and Stone are left with precious little to support their theories apart from one major piece of evidence that contradicts the findings of the Warren Commission. Another subjectivity, external to the texts of either Stone or Garrison, that of a man by the name of Zapruder in the crowd that witnessed the assassination that day, the twenty second of November, 1963, and his film of the Presidential motorcade. Within the Oliver Stone film, another, embedded text challenges the postmodern isolation of the image from actuality and reinstates the connection between the film image and actuality. 7.2 The Evidential Value of the Zapruder Film Reality in the Image The inclusion of the Zapruder footage in JFK highlights the complexity of the relationship between actuality, representation and interpretation in a challenging conjunction of Stone’s reconstruction of the assassination, with Zapruder’s home movie that has recorded the moment of the actual shooting. On closer consideration, the conjunction of apparently similar visual events is, in fact, a fusion of dissimilar elements. One is a dramatic enactment, the other infused with implications of evidentiality, being a film that shows us the actions of the authentic bodies at the historical moment. Reality here remains an uncertainty, as the viewer must attempt to distinguish between the actual and the enacted, or must accept the fusion of realities, the realism of Stone’s meticulous reconstruction, melded with the actuality of the amateur film. The distinction between the Zapruder film and Stone’s reconstruction that raises the pivotal subject of this thesis. To what extent can audio/visual texts correlate with actuality, and what are the forms of the narrativization to which they are subjected? The Zapruder film raises a number of issues that pertain to this question, particularly in relation to the capacity of the medium to record and replay images of actuality without altering the perception of events. Much has been made of the presence of the camera and its effects (chapter 5.2), with particular reference to the rejection of the ‘reality claims’ of cinema verite (chapter 5.1), but little has been mentioned about the possibilities of the unobtrusive, unobserved personal camera that is capable of capturing unpremeditated and spontaneous images. The Zapruder film is the only film of the assassination that provides images of the impact of the assassin’s bullet. Its value lies in the fact that it is a record of the actual, and not a mediated narrative construction, as is the case with JFK or the television news reports of the event. The issue of actuality in the audio/visual text is epitomized by the inquiry as to the ability 254 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK of a text to provide evidence concerning an actual occurrence. Do the Zapruder images inform us of the exact constitution of events, or do they provide only an intimation of the physical actuality? The use of these images in JFK has implications for their evidentiality of the actuality image, and obscures its referential function as an indication of the actual event. The images of the Kennedy assassination encourage a reappraisal of the postmodern approach to reality. Baudrillard offers the consummate relativistic thesis on the relations between reality and the image, claiming that the simulation of reality is indistinguishable from reality itself: It is practically impossible to isolate the process of simulation; through the force of inertia of the real which surrounds us, the inverse is also true … namely, it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real. 30 According to Baudrillard, the simulation and the real are engaged in a reciprocal relation, with simulation being interpreted as reality, and reality being represented through simulation. The simulation, therefore, becomes indistinguishable from reality. The Zapruder film has indeed taken on the designation of reality, as its images are repeatedly referred to as evidence of the trajectory of the bullets fired by the assassin (or assassins, as the case may be). The implications of this unusual piece of film, however, dispute the notion of simulation, as its visual contents, it can be argued, provide evidence of actual events, and therefore indicate a reality. The existence of a celluloid strip with emulsion that has chemically reacted to the light refraction from actual physical bodies gives the image evidential authenticity, boldly challenging Baudrillard’s notion of the unverifiable real. Film emulsion, then, provides an accurate image of the events that occur as the camera records the action. This fact is, however, also true of enacted film, where the simulation is not of the technological regime, but the simulation of physical bodies (actors), assuming identities (roles). In the case of actual events images function as a technological-virtual, with the screen image and audio simulating sensory data. 31 In the case of dramatic enactment or reconstruction, however, there are two strata of virtualization that occur: one, the dramatic simulation of identity and events, which is of the narrative-virtual but in this case occurs prior to the screen image, the other, technological-virtual simulation of sensory data by the moving image and audio of film and television. It is not the physical correlation of actual bodies with light and film emulsion that provides the appearance of authentic actuality in the image, but the reading of conventions, the cultural transmission of (extra textual) information, and the interpretive strategy adopted by the viewer that determines the reception of the text as it relates to actual events. The determination of the actuality of an image is arrived at through knowing the context of the act of filming, and the public identity and social circumstances of the events, combined with the qualities of the image as an indication of genre. In the case of the Zapruder film, the appearance and identity of President Kennedy is social knowledge that is commonplace, and the status of the Zapruder film as an amateur, ‘home movie’ is also known to most viewers prior to 30 31 Baudrillard, 1988a, p.179. See the discussion in chapter 3.3 of the three levels of virtualisation. 255 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK their experience of JFK. The reading of the sites of simulation in JFK has been partly determined prior to the viewing experience, through cultural awareness of the discourse surrounding the assassination. The Zapruder film, when considered separately from JFK, provides only a technological-virtual simulation, in which the image provides sensory data and there is no dramatic enactment of pro-filmic events. This is not to say that there is no performance, as the presidential entourage is the site of the intersection of social strata, of the president and his wife being on display to the public and acting accordingly, waving and smiling to the crowd. It is not the presence of Zapruder’s camera, however, that causes this mode of performance, but a social power relationship. It was this same social power relationship that attracted the presence of the camera, as a tourist with movie camera captured images of the national leader. The context of the filming was not that of fictional film, or even documentary film production, where the actors or subjects are often aware of the camera, but a coincidental convergence of the camera, a public identity and a startling event at one given moment in time. As such, the film image has a measure of correlation to actual events (in the absence of photographic or digital manipulation). 32 The patterns of color, light and shade on the emulsion tell us something of the actuality that has occurred, providing an indication of the visual data that would have been experienced by an eyewitness. The situation in which the Zapruder film takes on the function of a ‘reality’ is in the recounting of the event, where those who were physically absent are able to see a virtual simulation of the actual event, to undergo a surrogate visual experience of the assassination, and to form opinions, and make judgements concerning the actual physical bodies that are represented by the film images. In these circumstances the film image requires a different theoretical approach to that of linguistic signification, with the image in this case providing a view of the ‘real world’ in an unmediated fashion that challenges postmodern notions of representation. The cinematic image is a more vivid likeness than we receive through verbal discourse, has a stronger ‘resemblance’ to the eyewitness experience of ‘being there’ than do written accounts or still photographic images. The cinematic image is more analogous to the actual in terms of sensory perception than other forms of discourse. 33 It provides evidence of the actual event by reproducing the patterns of light refraction as would be perceived by the eye – or, at least, a two dimensional, ‘framed’ rendition of visual sensory perception. Although there is no ‘guarantee’ of authenticity in any photographic image, the same argument can be applied to visual sensory perception. It is feasible to claim that film images provide a superior means of establishing physical events than does actual sensory data, as the experience of sensory perception occurs at one point in time, and all subsequent reference to that experience requires the function of memory, as ‘re-collection,’ or ‘re-cognition.’ The film image, however, can be re-played (and re-perceived), in order to establish details, and can be slowed to isolate movements. The Zapruder film is capable of revealing more detail of some aspects of the Kennedy assassination than would an eyewitness experience, as it provides a permanent image that can be repeatedly viewed and analyzed. 32 33 The theoretical implications of the manipulation of images are examined in chapter 8. The theatrical representation, however, provides a more difficult comparison. See Metz, 1982, p.64. 256 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK This enhanced level of correlation between the film image and the actual event is, however, achievable only under unique circumstances: the subjects are unaware of the presence of the camera, the film maker is not directing the action in any way, nor does he have any contact with the subjects, and the chronology of the event is not altered by editing or narrative construction. This is not a subscription to the naivete of the early views of cinema, as expressed by James Agee when he claimed that cameras were “incapable of recording anything but truth, absolute truth.” 34 The subjective positioning of the Zapruder film is remarkably evident, as the view of the president at the time of the first gunshot is obscured denying a view of the impact of the bullet (which is alleged to have struck him in the head and throat). The ‘truth’ in this case is also obscured as the camera is limited to images that are visible from its position at a given time and space. There is no validity in the expectation that the camera can reveal ‘absolute truth,’ but in comparison to the often clouded or uncertain recollections of an eyewitness it can provide a measure of visual evidence where there is no other physical data. The actual is represented by the image, and the representation is capable of revealing more about the actual than we could know in the absence of a representation. The film image provides additional data that enhances awareness of actual events, but in no way provides absolute truth. It does, however, create a reproduction of the actual event, with actuality being reduced to a two-dimensional and (in the case of the Zapruder film), silent representation. The absence of audio data further highlights the sensory limitations of representation, as the recorded sounds of the actual event may have assisted in determining the number of shots fired. No visual representation is capable of reproducing the sensory data that is experienced by the actual physical presence of a witness, but the validity of a visual representation must be weighed against the sensory experience, which is made less accessible by the passage of time, and the recollection of events which is unreliable. 35 34 35 Agee, cited in Winston, 1995, p.137. See Carll, 1999, and Miller, 2000, whose findings confirm the unreliability of event recall. 257 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.2.1: The enhanced and enlarged video release of the Zapruder film, frames 224-228, in which the entourage emerges from behind the road sign which has (according to Garrison), obscured 36 the view of the first shot. Kennedy’s hands are indeed clutching at his throat (top-left of image). The visual images of the Zapruder film provide a partial sensory representation, and a single camera position, but this limited sensory data has not been sufficient evidence to prove beyond doubt the exact nature of actual events, in particular of the 36 Images from http://www.jmasland.com/z_frames.htm in February 1999. 258 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK existence of multiple assassins. On the other hand, it has provided sufficient evidence to cast doubt over the official findings of the Warren Commission. On one hand, the Zapruder film provides images of an inaccessible, bygone actuality, giving some indication as to the events of November 1963, but it provides only an indication of the details of events, revealing only what can be observed from a subjective positioning of the camera. There are no absolute truths in this image, but there is substantial evidence to assist in the construction of a historical account. The obscured camera shot serves as a metonym of the partial actuality of the image, in which the actuality is reproduced, but not in its completeness. The evidential value of the image is never conclusive, neither is it coincident with actuality, but a measure of actuality is transmitted by the image. It is precisely this venture that Oliver Stone pursues in JFK, with a search for the facts behind the assassination being a major objective of the film. The inclusion of the Zapruder film in the larger text illustrates the difference between the real and the hyperreal as posited by Baudrillard. The massive Hollywood production of JFK dwarfs the diminutive Zapruder film in all aspects excepting one; the actuality of the Zapruder images as opposed to the dramatic reconstruction of Stone’s film. The hyperreality of the ‘larger than life’ Hollywood production style is in complete contrast to the unfinished simplicity of the Zapruder film. Baudrillard uses Disneyland as an example of the hyperreal, with its exaggerated and fantastic architecture and imagery in stark contrast to the bland, featureless concrete of the car park outside. His claim is that the hyperreality of the theme park contrasts with the reality of the ‘outside’ world, that the very extravagance of Disneyland reinforces the existence of an illusory everyday reality: Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle. The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false: it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. Whence the debility, the infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It is meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the “real” world, and to conceal the fact that real childishness is everywhere. 37 In like manner the contrast between the glamorous Hollywood production style of JFK functions as a heightened imaginary hyperreality, with the ‘romantic’ Hollywood persona of Kevin Costner far surpassing the reality of an ‘ordinary’ Jim Garrison. The sophisticated production standards of Stone’s film, providing aerial images, detailed reconstruction, high resolution film images and complex montage techniques, is in stark contrast to the raw amateurism of the ‘grainy’ Zapruder film. The high-budget Hollywood drama plays ‘Disneyland’ to the ‘car park’ of the Zapruder film, the contrasting styles highlighting the apparent actuality of the amateur film, with JFK appropriating the realism of the amateur film in order to maximize the verisimilitude in Stone’s artifice. In this case the verisimilitude is 37 Baudrillard, 1988a, p.172. 259 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK achieved by the contrast of the narrative-actual, not with the narrative-virtual, but with the undramatized technological-virtual. Baudrillard maintains that the real is no longer distinguishable from its simulation, and that the contemporary notion of the real is an illusion that reflects a historical notion of the real. He uses “material production” as an illustration of the demise of reality: What society seeks through production, and over production, is the restoration of the real which escapes it. That is why contemporary “material” production is itself hyperreal. It retains all the features of the whole discourse of traditional production, but is nothing more than its scaled-down refraction (thus the hyperrealists fasten in a striking resemblance a real from which has fled all meaning and charm, all the profundity and energy of representation). Thus, the hyperrealism of simulation is expressed everywhere by the real’s striking resemblance to itself. 38 The JFK/Zapruder example, however, throws his conclusions into doubt. There appears to be an assumption in Baudrillard’s reasoning that attributes reality to traditional material production, but denies that privilege to contemporary production. In the case of film, there is, as has been discussed above, two sites of simulation: the narrative-actual of the dramatic performance, and the technological-virtual image. The simulation in this case works on both of these levels, with JFK utilizing dramatic performance and technological-virtual image, and the Zapruder film the technological-virtual screen image only. Simulation, then, cannot be considered as a unified concept, as there are proportionate levels and modalities of simulation in film and television. The absence of dramatic performance (itself a variable quantity in most audio/visual images), indicates a minimization of mediation, and a greater correlation between the actual and the image. The simulation of an actual event through a screen image can be a performance (an actual identity performing for the camera), or an authentic, actual image of an event that is in no way (or minimally), a dramatic enactment. Therefore the non-dramatic technological-virtual image offers a closer correlation to the actual than the dramatically enacted screen image. Baudrillard’s theory points towards the screen image as a simulation that is indistinguishable from, and is, in effect, a displacement of the ‘traditional’ conception of reality. The Zapruder film in its evidential capacity provides a partial view of the actual, and demands a reappraisal of the relations between the representation and the actual. The representation can, and does, partially verify actuality, but cannot be cited as an empirical certitude when referring to the actual. It is significant to note that in the Jim Garrison investigation it was the Zapruder film that provided the primary evidence of actual events. It is also significant that the legal case failed to prove a conspiracy, but, in fact, cast doubt on the constructed ‘truth’ of the official account. The conclusions that can be drawn from this are conflicting. Firstly, the recording of light on film is in itself holds no guarantee of truth, even when slowed to one twenty fourth of a second intervals. The entirety of the actual cannot be contained in visual images, and, further to this, representation of the actual does not offer any surety of revealing absolute truth. On the other hand, film is capable of ‘containing’ some measure of actuality, as is observable in the 38 ibid., p.180. 260 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK extensive analysis of the Zapruder film as evidence of the angle of gunfire. Nondramatic visual images furnish evidence as to the actual, providing an indication of the actual event by reproducing a representation of sensory data that exceeds the human capacity to recall intricate geometric detail. The Function of Boundaries in JFK The application of the Zapruder film in JFK reveals both its evidential value, and its inadequacy as ‘absolute proof.’ The courtroom scene, with the case for the prosecution of Clay Shaw conducted by Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), presents a hypothetical explanation of the events pertaining to the assassination. Stone combines reconstruction of these hypothetical events with the Zapruder film in order to construct a cohesive visual illustration of the notions that are expressed in the verbal address. It is significant to note the appropriation of documentary techniques in the context of the courtroom scene. The verbal discourse of Garrison’s closing address, when combined with visual images, bears a strong resemblance to the ‘voice of God’ commentary of classical documentary, with one voice presenting a unified and positivistic argument, and directing the visual content. The similarities between Stones use of reconstruction and Corner’s “evidential mode three,” (the illustrative), and the definition of visual illustrative mode of documentary in chapter 5 of this thesis, are cogent. 39 The documentary influence is evident in JFK as the representational modalities in the courtroom scene shift from the dramatic fictional performance of Kevin Costner, to the reconstruction of the assassination location in Dealey Plaza, and the virtual actuality of the Zapruder film. The combination of conventions that Stone employs in this scene is genre specific, and utilizes distinctly identifiable shifts in referential modality. It would be inappropriate to designate this scene as a hybridization of documentary and fiction, as there is a clearly defined series of textual ‘jolts,’ as the conventions of several forms of media are juxtaposed. The Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of machinic assemblage provides an appropriate description of this combination of divergent images accurately. Their depiction of the book as an assemblage equally applies to the extra-textual and intertextual connections made by film and television texts: As an assemblage, a book has only itself, in connection with other assemblages and in relation to other bodies without organs. We will never ask what a book means as signified or signifier; we will not look for anything to understand in it. We will ask what it functions with, in connection with what other things it does or does not transmit intensities, in which other multiplicities its own are inserted and metamorphosed, and with what bodies without organs it makes its own converge. A book exists only through the outside and on the outside. A book itself is a little machine. 40 The ‘outside’ of the JFK machine does converge with other multiplicities: those of documentary production conventions, of courtroom drama films and novels, of subversive political rhetoric, and of historical debate, among the countless other connections that are established by Stone’s assemblage of divergent elements in the 39 40 Corner, 1996, p.29,and also see chapter 5.3. Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.4. 261 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK text. The aims of this analysis are indeed to ascertain “what it [the text] functions with,” and not to go down the hermeneutic path of interpretation, but the issue of interpretation cannot be so simply discarded as to proclaim, without justification, that “we will not look for anything to understand in it.” The reading or viewing of an audio/visual text requires an understanding of the mechanism of understanding, a meta-cognition of the text and its extra-textual functions that enables the viewer to engage with the text and establish internal and external connections from the text. The emphasis in this analysis is on the interpretive strategies that are applied to the text, rather than the interpretation itself, the experience of the reading in conjunction with the content of the text and the cultural construct of reality. For it is in the experience of the viewer that extra-textual connectivity occurs. The connections that are established during the reading of any text, be it television, film, print or photograph, are inseparable from the network of existing associations, of conventions and practices that have become entrenched in a culture. Reference has many modalities, and the experience of the viewer is affected by the textual cues that indicate preferred pathways of interpretation, or connectivity. Each shift in referential modality in JFK triggers a change of interpretive function, as the viewer is led through a fragmented aggregation of referential signification. The boundaries between fictional and documentary film are breached on several occasions as the courtroom scene transforms from dramatic reenactment, to reconstruction, and to the referential actuality of the Zapruder film. The breaches of these boundaries do not take the form of an uncertain vacillation between regimes of referentiality, but the contrasting modalities are clearly indicated. The viewer does not experience a ‘blurring’ of boundaries, but is placed in three specific interpretive positions: firstly, the reconstruction of historical events that is achieved through the use of film footage and television news reports from the Kennedy era. Cultural and technical indicators define the temporal perimeter of the diegesis, with clothing, speech, technology and architecture, combined with the black and white television images and amateur home movies resonating with the culture of early nineteen sixties America. The apparent authenticity of the film is enhanced by its adherence to the conventions of the era, not least of these being the voice over commentary of the introductory montage that adopts the authoritarian tone of expositional documentary, as discussed in the previous section of this chapter. The use of this technique transports the viewer to the Kennedy era as an observer at the depicted time, imitating the textual position of the era, but also invokes interpretive strategies that are associated with the utopian naiveté of North American culture of the late ’fifties and early ’sixties. The viewer is drawn into a receptive position where the film provides a narrative account of the actual, and functions to all intents and purposes as a documentary film. Its substance is reality, and the archival images used to represent the events of the era are the authentic images of the period. During the introduction to JFK the audience is in no doubt that the film they are viewing deals with actuality, albeit a mediated rendition of actuality. This frame of interpretation relies on conventions of genre and time period to suggest the receptive conditions and circumstances of the day, and to encourage a comparison between media reception in that time and the present. 262 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.2.2: The television images of the Kennedy era Fig. 7.2.3: Uncertainty as to the ‘reality’ of the image – is it a reconstruction or an actual, indexical image? Fig 7.2.4: Home movie or reconstruction? A viewer assumes the former, judging by the characteristics of the image. The second frame of interpretation follows on from the first, and it occurs when the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination is included in Stone’s audio/visual 263 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK reconstruction of the Kennedy assassination. The interpretive implication of the image ceases to be that of an argument about the event, and takes on evidential significance. The actual images of the Zapruder film are the most immediate account that any non-witness to the assassination can experience (being an unmediated amateur film that was not constructed with any particular purpose). It creates a subjective position for the viewer, but only in the same sense that all camera images position the viewer, at a location in time and space. The Zapruder film is not a fiction, in fact it has minimal narrative content, but it is a recorded image of an actual event, with no edits, no commentary, no opinion expressed by the filmmaker, but a chance encounter of a man with a camera filming a historical occasion. The image does not completely correspond to the actual event, but provides some sensory evidence as to the physical actuality. This frame of interpretation is partial evidentiality, where the image provides an indication as to the physical event, but 264 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK does not equal the event. A viewer cannot observe the Zapruder film at 24 frames a second and draw any firm conclusion, but arguments concerning the event can be based on analyses of the images. A narrative is constructed around the images of the actual events, with meaning being constructed after the event using images as evidence. This is similar to the interpretive mode as affected by Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema, where the viewer is encouraged to perceive screen images as actuality. The third interpretive frame is one that is usually associated with historical fiction film, and its inclusion in a film is often cited as a definitive reason as to why it is, or is not defined as a documentary film. It arises from the enactment of actual events and characters in dramatic reconstruction. The production conventions of fictional film can be applied to the representation of actual events in order to recreate scenarios and approximations of historical persons. The viewer is asked to enter into the same ‘suspension of disbelief’ that is experienced in fictional reception, where the body of the actor is substituted for the actual body. Although all other aspects of the reconstruction may be authentic, the location, the chronological order of events, and the detail of physical actions, it is the identities of the persons that appear in the film that determine our perception of the representation as authentic or not. From the earliest days of documentary it has been considered acceptable to repeat, or ‘stage’ events on the condition that they are performed by the authentic subject of the documentary. Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1927) features an igloo that was constructed as half a dome, in order to admit daylight for the sake of filming ‘authentic’ interior shots of the Eskimo with his family. A seal hunt was artificially prolonged by Flaherty’s pretense to misunderstand the Eskimos’ request for him to shoot the bull seal with his rifle. During the filming of Nanook of the North portions of raw footage were viewed, and ‘if it seemed unsatisfactory, or if he wanted an additional shot from another angle or distance, the action was repeated.’ 41 If the request to “do it one more time for the camera” were to disannul authenticity, there would be few authentic documentaries in existence. It is the appearance of authentic personal identity as opposed to dramatic enactment of an identity that signals to the viewer whether the film should be interpreted as ‘truth’ or ‘fiction.’ The film JFK is relegated to the realm of fiction the moment Kevin Costner appears in the role of Jim Garrison. Other films defined as documentary, however, also contain reconstruction of ‘real’ identities. In the case of reconstruction, and reenactment, the viewer passes momentarily from a literal reception of the image as reality, to the interpretation of the image as a dramatic and fictional representation, that, despite its attempts to represent actuality cannot substitute for the authenticity of identity. Dramatic enactment, however, can function as a tool that assists in putting forward a documentary argument. There is no blurring of boundaries here, but a crossing from one territory to another, and a return. Rather than confusion between, or a blending of forms, it is a distinct transition from one interpretive frame to another, as the viewer alternates from a fictional reading that requires ‘suspension of disbelief,’ to perceptions of the real world in evidential documentary images. The documentary film can pass through moments of fiction, and return, just as JFK passes into documentary territories, and returns to historical fiction. The notion of permeable boundaries 41 Barnouw, 1974, p.38. 265 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK allows for inclusion of dramatic technique, but in no way challenges the status of documentary as actuality. Even with the use of evidential images of the actual a narrative construction is required to make some sense of the audio and visual data. Screen image and sounds are experienced by the viewer as disconnected from any physical context and it is the narrative that provides explanation of the contextual aspects of setting, extra-textual occurrences and cultural influences. No documentary film manages to depict the actual world without some measure of narrative construction. The use of dramatic reconstruction does not amount to an attempt to ‘lie’ to the viewer, 42 but to put forward the argument of the filmmaker concerning ‘real world’ events, or to enhance the illustration of a historical character that is deceased or somehow unavailable to the camera. Disguising the identity of the actor, with facial features being avoided can also bolster suspension of disbelief and replaced by generic characteristics that may be applicable to the body of the absent subject. The techniques used to represent the absent body provide a cue for the viewer to enter another frame of interpretation which is similar to that used in the reception of historical fiction film, such as Schindler’s List. Fictional techniques of representation need not be thought of as isolated from the actual world, but can bring the viewer to a more complete understanding of historical actuality. The use of dramatic representation does not adhere to the ideals of observational documentary, but enables the posing of arguments about historical actuality, which, as has been discussed in the previous section, is subject to multiple narrativization and interpretations. Postmodern documentary filmmakers are generally aware of the processes of narrativization, and that documentary film, according to Nichols, amounts to a narrative construction of evidence and argument put forward by a filmmaker. 43 There is, however, an expectation that the film should relate to the actual, that its subjects should exist in the ‘real world’ and that any arguments should require change in, or make comment on the ‘real world’. The issue here is not whether documentary is ‘reality’ but how documentary represents the real. JFK, on the other hand, is an assemblage of dramatic reenactment, documentary reconstruction and actuality footage that oscillates between forms and genres. The combination of referential modes brings together the rhetoric of biographical dramatic narrative with the evidential persuasion of the Zapruder film, placing the documentary reconstruction of the Dealey Plaza assassination between these two extremes, and thereby obfuscating the speculative content of the reconstructed scenes. The courtroom setting provides an appropriate scenario for Stone’s narrative construction, as the persuasive documentary reconstruction presents a hypothetical case that disallows all other possibilities, providing an occlusive explication of the evidence. 42 See Eitzen 1995, pp. 81-102. Eitzen suggests that the ability of a film to ‘lie’ to its audience provides a means of defining the documentary genre. 43 Nichols, 1991, pp.107-103. 266 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK 7.3 The Permeation of Genre Boundaries in JFK Boundaries, Blurred or Permeable? The Zapruder film is depicted in JFK as a source of evidence which provides an indication as to actual events. This evidential appropriation of the Zapruder film is, however, synthesized into the several genres that are converged into the text of JFK. To consider the Zapruder film as a text distinct from JFK is to overlook the narrative construction that ties the Zapruder images to the surrounding portrayal of events that Stone constructs. The courtroom scene in JFK is suitably symbolic representation of the assassination debate, with implications that extend beyond the boundaries of the text and, indeed, the actual court case. Its references extend to the representational modes and technologies of Western cultures (as is evident in the distinct technologies observable in the television news footage, the Zapruder images, and the high resolution of the dramatic enactment), to the American people and their trust in Governmental authority and notions of social justice. Stone points towards the assassination as being symptomatic of significant alterations in relations between the social fields of representation and the activities of the state. 44 The Zapruder film, as the primary evidence for the conspiracy theory, functions as a Deleuzo-Guattarian machinic assemblage, bridging the gap between genres and bringing about conjunctions between the state apparatus, cultural and representational fields. Stone’s appropriation of the Zapruder film adds a layer of mediation by encompassing the actuality of the images within an entertainment medium. The Hollywood production and distribution machine brings the Zapruder film into the realm of popular culture, a move which brings about alteration in the socio-political articulations of the Zapruder film. The Kennedy assassination can no longer be limited to a political debate around the ethics of government and the machinations of intelligence organizations in the U.S.A., but the popularization of the film JFK has moved the debate into areas that exceed the limitations of its genre. 45 This calls for a new interpretation of the notion of genre, and the means of its definition. The Stone film is not documentary, but neither is it entirely fiction. In this section the boundaries between genres as found in the convergence of images in JFK will be analyzed and an alternative approach to boundaries will be posited. In order to conceive of the breaches of boundaries between genre it is necessary to examine the notion of boundaries, and the universally applicable characteristics of borderlines and territories. There is no hard and fast point at which a territory ceases to be, and another territory comes into existence unless a boundary is constructed through consensus between social groups and communities. In other words, the notion of a boundary is a point of agreement where a culture or cultures accept that a change from one territory to another has occurred. This concept applies equally to boundaries of all sorts: the boundary between man and nature, states and nations, cities, villages, private ownership of land, and all systems of categorization. Taxonomy of animal and plant species, the distinctions between gender, class and race, are subject to an agreement as to where the specific point of transition occurs. 44 See Oliver Stone’s speech to the Institute of International Studies, U.C. Berkeley, at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Stone-grad3.html 45 See Romanowski, 1993, and c.f. Kopkind, 1992. 267 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK The notion of the blurring of boundaries and of nomadology theorizes a continuum, where division or territorialization is an arbitrary and intrusive imposition on commonality. Deleuze and Guattari posit a nomadology which is modeled on the movement of nomadic peoples across “smooth spaces” such as deserts or oceans. 46 This is opposed to the delimitation of smooth space into “striated spaces,” for which they attribute responsibility to the State. Such smooth spaces exist, according to Deleuze and Guattari, “between two striated spaces: that of the forest with its gravitational verticals, and that of agriculture, with its grids and generalized parallels,” and nomads are in conflict with the delimitation of striated spaces. 47 But this view, particularly in its attribution of delimitation to the state apparatus, does not take into account the validity of naturally occurring delimitation. Using international boundaries as an example, there are often sound reasons for the declaration of a boundary or border. The nomadic model suggests that ethnicity is not determined by the barriers that are erected between peoples and communities, but this notion is contradicted by the case of naturally occurring barriers to trade or travel, such as rivers, oceans, and mountain ranges. Borders are, in such cases, mere reflections of the actual conditions of the terrain. The continuum is a valid view of the constancy of natural elements, and of ethnic continuity across terrain and breaks in terrain, but to disregard the features of earth and ocean that separate territories is to elude the obvious. Natural boundaries exist, and distinctions between territories are in many cases actual and observable physical barriers that endure, regardless of inter-cultural consensus. This argument can be extended to encompass the realm of film and television genres. The differences between groups of texts are not only a consensus, but reflect actual conditions of narrative form, reference and interpretation. Genre boundaries are subject to permeation as fragments of texts pass beyond their territorial confines, as the transition between portions of a text may intersect and cross over boundaries, but not dissolve or blur them. Deleuze and Guattari provide models of such interaction between groupings as rhizomic multiplicities and machinic assemblages. Vectors of thought that are unconstrained by semiotic systems and social conventions disregard delineation of territory, undergoing a process of deterritorialization, and become lines of flight which encounter multiple territories as they proceed. Boundaries exist as firm, but permeable divisions, which can be intersected by the line of flight as it passes over the socially determined world. Deleuze and Guattari suggest a conjunction of lines superimposed over the territorialized world: One is no longer anything more than an abstract line, or a piece in a puzzle that is itself abstract. It is by conjugating, by continuing with other lines, other pieces, that one makes a world that can overlay the first one, like a transparency. 48 This model allows for the passage across boundaries without signaling their dissolution. The boundaries remain intact (although not permanently fixed), as the line of flight passes over, and enters into multiple territories of genre. 46 Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.382. ibid., p.384. 48 ibid., p.280. 47 268 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK The notion of ‘blurred boundaries’ originates from a theoretical reaction against the classical conception of fixed, impermeable boundaries, which was denounced in a postmodern reaction against all things empirical. Rather than a blurring of boundaries, I suggest that boundaries are intermittently breached by quantifiable segments of texts that deterritorialize by permeating boundaries. Film and television genre can be defined as a multiplicity of texts that share certain qualities in common. Deleuze and Guattari are insistent that a multiplicity does not take an indefinite form, but that it consists of a determinable arrangement that is defined according to its contents at any given time: [A] multiplicity is defined not by the elements that compose it in extension, not by the characteristics that compose it in comprehension, but by the lines and dimensions it encompasses in “intension.” If you change dimensions, if you add or subtract one, you change multiplicity. Thus there is a borderline for each multiplicity; it is in no way a center, but rather the enveloping line or farthest dimension, as a function of which it is possible to count the others, all those lines or dimensions constitute the pack at any given moment (beyond the borderline, the multiplicity changes nature). 49 This is not to suggest that these boundaries are fixed and impermeable. Rather, they are constantly shifting as newly emerging texts challenge the orthodoxy of genre boundaries. Borderlines of different multiplicities can also overlap, therefore allowing for films that are classified as ‘mocumentaries’ or hybrid forms. These texts are comprised of conventions stemming from both fiction and documentary. The definition of boundaries, however, does not become ‘blurred’ once the existence of an overlap is conceded. The “farthest dimension” of a multiplicity is a definite limit, beyond which a film ceases to be a component of the genre. The boundaries, then, should be thought of as the ‘outer limit’ of documentary, and the ‘outer limit’ of fiction, rather than the dividing line between the two genres. There are two main challenges to the traditional ‘dividing line’ notion of boundaries. One is the text that maintains a constant mode of reference to the real but inhabits the overlap, exhibiting characteristics of both genres; the other is the text that traverses the boundary, moving between genre. It is the nature of these two challenges that have been christened the blurring of boundaries. Nichols 50 identifies reality television, fictional/documentary hybrids and specific amateur video such as the images of the Rodney King beating to illustrate the notion of blurred boundaries. The difficulty here lies in the tendency to consider an audio/visual text as a whole, rather than as an assemblage of segments. The boundary between fiction and documentary does not exist as an obstacle between texts, but, rather, between moments within texts, and in the mutable relations between the viewer and textual depiction of reality. The viewer undergoes alterations of interpretive activity that occur between moments of a text, and manifest as lines of flight that traverse between texts, forms and genre. The Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of Strata can also be applied to the genre, as a particular formation of multiplicity that delimits. A stratum involves the gathering together of elements into a unified composition. The unified composition is, 49 50 ibid., p. 245. Nichols, 1994. 269 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK however, comprised of divergent parts that are combined around a unifying principle: A given stratum retains a unity of composition in spite of the diversity of its organization and development. The unity of composition relates to formal traits common to all of the forms or codes of a stratum, and to substantial elements, materials common to all of the stratum’s substances or milieus. 51 Genres are identified by the commonality of certain qualities that enable the classification of a grouping around those qualities. Strata are separated one from the other by tangible boundaries, but are not entirely detached. The combination of elements from contrasting strata necessitates a model for the perforation of the interstrata boundaries, and for the cohabitation of elements of multiple strata in a unitary assemblage. The machinic assemblage as defined by Deleuze and Guattari accounts for the multiple strata from which JFK draws its material, and refers to actuality through its suggested interpretive connections. By drawing from several strata, those of documentary film, of legal argument, of fictional film, of the political ‘reality’ of the assassination and the findings of the Warren Commission, JFK embodies the heterogeneous characteristics of an assemblage: An assemblage is necessary for the relations between two strata to come about. And an assemblage is necessary for organisms to be caught within and permeated by a social field that utilizes them… Assemblages are necessary for states of force and regimes of signs to intertwine their relations. Assemblages are necessary in order for the unity of composition enveloped in a stratum, the relations between a given stratum and the others, and the relation between these strata and the plane of consistency to be organized rather than random. 52 The permeable boundaries of the text are reflected by the permeability of other boundaries between strata: of genre boundaries, of boundaries between media forms (especially evident in the use of television images and home movie footage in a Hollywood feature film), and of the delineation between socio-political ‘reality’ and film representation. The machinic assemblage combines elements of several strata into components of a machine that penetrates boundaries and forms through connections that surpass territorial limitations. JFK combines and conjoins with the political, the aesthetic, the sub-cultures of subversive conspiracy theorists and the mainstream popular entertainment culture of the Western world. There can be no arbitrary separation of the text from the actual, as JFK’s impact has transcended the territorial boundaries of entertainment cinema. The articulation of reality with the popular Hollywood film in JFK has brought about a change of cultural consciousness, particularly in relation to the representation of the political sphere. The strata has been ruptured and (re)connected with unfamiliar territories that have been, in turn, effected by the flow across and through the boundaries. In DeleuzoGuattarian terms the text can be modelized as inhabiting strata, and as a machinic assemblage that draws its constituent parts from several strata, or, alternatively, the 51 52 Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p.502. ibid., p.71. 270 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK model of rhizome could be applied. The rhizome shoots out from the ordered and structural delimitation of the arboreal system, and produces lines that run between assemblages. It embodies the state of becoming, of continual transition that is observable in the evolution of genre. The rigid delimitation of the strata model does not allow for the transitional state of genres, as the flows between genre and form are not always adequately expressed as the (Hjelmslevian) form and substance of content and the form and substance of expression: … The strata set up everywhere double articulations animated by movements: form and substances of content and form and substances of expression constituting segmentary multiplicities with relations that are determinable in every case. 53 Genres are in many cases not clearly definable, as are strata, but are more appropriately defined by the model of rhizome, as their multiplicity reflects that of the pack (being effectively a ‘pack of texts,’) and the lack of any defining or central point reveals an arrangement that “has neither subject nor object, only determinations, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot increase in number without the multiplicity changing.” 54 To add to a genre is to change its characteristics, as each text manifests qualities that modify the definition of that genre. The many connections that are formed with other texts, and other realities external to the genre bear out the requirement that “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be.” 55 The genre, then, as a flexible and transitional multiplicity, cannot be imprisoned by the rigid limitations of strata, but embark on a continual nomadic transition. The function of mixed genre in JFK is to constitute an aggregation of production conventions and modes of address that combine within the text and provide connections of form with expression. The television images and actuality footage confound any determination of a singular genre for the text, and problematize the distinction between the formal characteristics of film and television. It is, however, this very obfuscation of the determination of form and genre that gives JFK its powerful blend of historical authenticity and narrative cohesion. The conjunction of Hollywood entertainment and political rhetoric attracted an enraged reaction from critics and academics, who mercilessly castigated Stone for his construction of an oppositional version of American history. Walkowitz does not exaggerate when he claims that: There may be little Stone can do to counter the prevalent public view that he is a crank and a historical misanthrope. He has become a standing joke for editorial writers and cultural pundits. 56 The extreme reaction to Stone’s use of classical documentary technique is seemingly a response given in outrage at an individual filmmaker’s appropriation of an institutional mode of documentary production, and his rhetorical utilization of 53 ibid., p.72. ibid., p. 8. 55 ibid., p.7. 56 Walkowitz, 1998, p.51. 54 271 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK classical convention as a means of bolstering the legitimacy of a subversive narrative. Oliver Stone has enraged historians, journalists and politicians with his combination of documentary and dramatic conventions. A large part of the frustration evident in the American reception of the film is the inability to classify the text. If the film could be defined as documentary, it could be comfortably relegated to the dry archival realm of political commentary, if a fiction, it could be discounted as a hypothetical or imaginary scenario, but the curious, fragmented combination of fictional and non-fictional genres disallows either response. Its popularity as a Hollywood narrative has assured it a broad public audience, and Stone’s utilization of documentary convention loans authenticity to its rhetoric. The breaching of boundaries of form and genre in JFK has provided a challenge for the viewing public and for film critics, in that the text, as a machinic assemblage, defies definition as either fact or fiction, but boldly inhabits both territories by breaching the boundaries of form and genre within a single text. Characteristics of the Image as Indication of Genre Boundaries In order to observe and analyze the function of genre boundaries in JFK, the moments of their permeation must be identified, and the affect on interpretations of the text should be anticipated. The introductory segment, which was discussed in the first section of this chapter, prefigures the later conjunction of generic styles. The initial use of home movies, television footage and archival film signals a combination of interpretive frames that will challenge conventional interpretive strategies (analyzed in section 7.1). The court room scene, however, provides the most complex combination of genres as the Zapruder film provides a powerful connection between the actual event and the representation. All visual components of this scene, with the exception of the Zapruder film, are dramatically enacted, but the black and white images and the fragmented construction of images around the oration of Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), gives the impression of documentary presentation. The Dealey Plaza reconstruction also combines the conventions of several genres in a carefully constructed layering of images that implies reality. Stone describes the process of creating the illusion of contrasting forms of media as being the result of conditions at the time of filming: JFK was very fractured because the nature of the shoot was that we were covering ourselves. You have a situation where you have Dealey Plaza for ten days … we had four cameras, sometimes we would assign different stocks to each camera and shoot one way to get the coverage we needed, and then we’d reestablish the other way. … It wasn’t a question of reversing so much as sectors. Think of Dealey Plaza as 360 degrees, as opposed to flips, because the sun dictates where you’re going to shoot. 57 The disparity between images, then, was an intentional device, in which the event was represented with reference to divergent genre through the use of different camera formats and film stock. The variety of intertextual sources (television news, 57 Stone, in Smith, 1994, p.38. 272 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK and super 8 film), was matched by the filming in multiple formats of the reconstruction. This heterogeneity of images and styles creates an impression of multiple points of view, and insinuates a corresponding variation of interpretive strategies. The images differ in content, but it is the expectation that the viewer applies to the visual qualities of the image that produce the ‘false reality’ that so enraged many journalists and historians. 58 Fig. 7.3.1: Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), presenting the evidence in court. Fig. 7.3.3: Black and white images used for Garrison’s speculative construction of events, in particular the ‘multiple shooters’ theory. 58 Fig. 7.3.2: Visual illustrative documentary mode, using documentary-style visual images over Garrison’s court oratory. Fig. 7.3.4: Super8 film of the reconstruction, imitating the blurred images of the Zapruder film. See Bethell, 1993, Collier, 1992, and c.f. Vogel, 1992. 273 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.3.5: More super8 film of non- Fig. 7.3.6: A (speculative) assassin’s point of speculative reconstruction. Color is used where the images do not represent Garrison’s conjectural scenario. view. Fig. 7.3.7: The reconstruction includes the presence of the camera, implying the forthcoming Zapruder images. Fig. 7.3.8: The Zapruder film is included in its enlarged format. Fig. 7.3.9: Stone employs a further Fig. 7.3.10: The blurred Zapruder image is imitated in Stone’s reconstruction through the use of camera movement. enlargement of the image, deconstructing the appearance of actuality. 274 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.3.11: The blurred images are juxtaposed with high-resolution 35mm. film images. Fig. 7.3.12: The enlarged Zapruder frame 313, which depicts the fatal shot, is included as a full screen image in JFK. Fig. 7.3.13: After the shooting the Zapruder Fig. 7.3.14: … grainy black and white images images are rapidly inter-cut with reconstruction images, high resolution color images … Fig. 7.3.15: …and low resolution super 8 color Fig. 7.3.16: The historical texture of the images film. is maintained. 275 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig. 7.3.17: The reconstruction of the postassassination activities of Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman), are also depicted in black and white documentary-style images. Fig. 7.3.18: The Oswald images maintain the black and white representation that is symbolic of speculation in Garrison’s case. The high-resolution images of the court room scene are contrasted with the black and white reconstruction of the Dealey Plaza assassination (see Figs. 7.3.1-3). The use of reconstruction images over the narration of Garrison is clearly a utilization of the visual illustrative mode of documentary (chapter 5.2), in which the image depicts the content of the oration. The initial use of these images in this context is not, however, a simple illustrative accompaniment to the speech, but the contrasting forms of image that Stone juxtaposes also imply interpretive frames. The speculative argument of Garrison that the assassination was carried out by several ‘shooters,’ is consistently represented in black and white imagery, and the color images are indicative of factuality (in the case of the Zapruder images), or of a generic image that has no reference to specific events, but contributes to the overall depiction of the setting. The black and white images convey the harsh realism of cinema verite, in a similar fashion to the Ghetto scene in Schindler’s List, but the utilization of rapid editing highlights the constructed fragmentation of the narrative. The harsh realism of cinema verite images is dislocated by the multiple perspectives of an indeterminate number of ‘shooters’ as they prepare their weapons and take aim. The rapid editing of images remains a feature of the courtroom scene throughout, as several hundred visual perspectives are flashed before the eyes of the viewer in the space of approximately five minutes. The grainy black and white is juxtaposed with the blurred color images of the super 8 format (Fig. 7.3.4), which prefigures the inclusion of the Zapruder film (Fig. 7.3.8-9). The use of black and white images to represent the subjectivity of the (speculative) assassins is underlined by several images which depict the crosshairs of a telescopic sight as they take aim at the President (Fig. 7.3.6). The combination of images to this point is entirely comprised of documentary reconstruction, in which the contrasting format of the images gives the impression of a color ‘reality,’ which is contrasted with the black and white ‘virtual’. The narrative virtual is also observable in the contrast between the reconstruction images and the courtroom, which, at this point of the narrative, becomes the narrative-actual. This relation is complicated, however, when the Zapruder film is observed (Figs. 7.3.8-9). The enlarged enhancement of the film has reduced the resolution of the images to a point where the features of the President’s face are almost indistinguishable, yet this image is the nexus of actuality with the representation, and provides the closest 276 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK relation of the image to the actual. The indistinct image is further degraded when Stone cuts to a close-up framing of the President’s head for the moments of the final impact of the bullet. The super 8 image, when enlarged to this extent, loses any clarity, and becomes an imprecise amorphous approximation of the human form (Fig. 7.3.12). Actuality in the image has been reduced to the form that least resembles actuality, and yet which is the penultimate conjunction of actual events with the film image. This image, in its context in JFK, provides a persuasive argument against accuracy of reproduction as an indication of actuality in visual images. The similarity of the image to the actual event is reduced to its most minimal congruence, yet the social knowledge that this image is not a dramatic performance, or a documentary reconstruction, diffuses any notion of realism through resemblance, or correspondence. The moment of impact is the climacteric narrative event, as Garrison’s verbal representation is matched by the Zapruder images, and the repeated explosion of blood, and the movement of Kennedy’s head “back and to the left …back and to the left … back and to the left,” is replayed several times in order to emphasize the direction of the gun fire. Not only is the Zapruder image used as the primary evidence for Garrison’s legal case, but also the consummate moment of Stone’s film. Of the millions of dollars invested in the reconstruction of the assassination, and the availability of special effects technology that could conceivably have provided a far superior representation of the event, it is the almost indistinguishable Zapruder image that is used at the moment of Kennedy’s death. At this point JFK is functioning as a documentary film, positing an argument with evidence concerning the ‘real’ world, 59 but the documentary value of the argument and evidence is embedded within a dramatic enactment, as the viewer is reminded when the courtroom once again becomes the scene of the visual action. The depictions of the aftermath of the assassination are once again inter-cut with Costner’s enactment within the court. The contrast of formats and conventions are continued, with the genres being imitated in the image construction techniques applied to each format. Figure 7.3.13 is a conventional Hollywood high-resolution image, with smooth camera movement and clear delineation of foreground (Limousine), mid-ground (the security officer in the black suit), and background (buildings). The black and white images are not as meticulously constructed, usually conforming to documentary framing conventions. The event is of greater significance in the black and white images, with a two-dimensional overhead view of the presidential entourage proceeding along Dealey Plaza combined with medium close-up images of gunmen packing their weapons and escaping the scene of the assassination. The super 8 color images are also constructed in contrariety to Hollywood conventions, maintaining a wide-angle view, without framing a specific subject, but adopting the wandering, almost random movement of an amateur camera operator. The resemblance to documentary is not limited to the form and genre of specific image sequences, but is also reflected in the inter-cutting of interview material with Garrison’s court summation. On several occasions Stone cuts to brief segments of reconstructed interview commenting on the presence of ‘extra bodies’ in windows, and police encounters with secret service agents that could not be explained or 59 Nichols, 1991. 277 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK verified. This utilization of verbal-testimonial and visual-direct documentary modes, 60 although maintaining the status of documentary reconstruction, interrupts the dramatic enactment of the courtroom scene by breaking the continuity of Garrison’s oration. For the duration of these edits there is no connection between the court room enactment and the audio/visual representation. Interview reconstruction is included as a means of enhancing the argument of JFK as a statement of ‘historical fact,’ contravening the classical Hollywood conventions of continuity editing and causality. 61 The interview images imply an argument that exists alongside that of Garrison’s legal case, that of the filmmaker who refers to documentary convention in order to persuade the viewer as to the authenticity of the argument, rather than the image. The recourse to ‘amateur’ and documentary styles and conventions produces a disorienting combination of interpretive strategies for the viewer. Each of the genres implies a specific relation between the image and actuality, and when they are conjoined in rapid succession the meaning of the overall text is profoundly effected. The convergence of form and genre in JFK brings images that indicate actuality into immediate proximity with images that infer dramatic enactment, particularly when inclusive of the Hollywood ‘star,’ Kevin Costner. The permeation of genre boundaries that occurs as the text migrates from genre to genre calls for a multiple interpretive strategy that integrates several sub-genres of documentary with the ‘reality’ of the Zapruder film, and Hollywood dramatic reenactment. The hierarchy of images established in JFK can be defined as an opposition of visual resemblance and the use of genre convention to give the impression of actuality. The high-resolution images of the dramatic enactment bear a far stronger resemblance to actuality than do the documentary conventions and the enlarged image of Kennedy from the Zapruder film. This image bears the least visual resemblance to actuality, but has the greatest significance in the text as an actuality image. The image which is the least constructed signifies the maximum correlation of actuality to the image. The interpretive strategies implied by the grainy black and white documentary images also employ the reduced resemblance between the image and actuality as a device to signify actuality. The conventions of the different genres are, therefore, measurable by their level of visual exactitude and the level of arrangement and construction evident in the image. The immediate spontaneity and low image resolution of the Zapruder film is visually imprecise, and this is exaggerated by Stone’s enlargement of the image. The documentary reconstruction minimizes considered composition of elements in the frame, and the black and white representation is in itself a reduction of the correlation between actuality and the screen image. The narrativization of actuality in JFK engages in degrees of realism through the minimization of image quality and composition. Realism, in this case, is not defined by a resemblance to actuality, but a convention of visual representation that implies an interpretation of the image as depicting actual events. 60 61 See chapter 5.2. See chapter 6.3. 278 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK The interpretive strategies which, in a conventionally constructed film, would be reserved for each genre in isolation are utilized in rapid succession. Journalistic response to the film is critical of Stone’s editing technique, and insinuates that the construction of the text is capable of confusing the interpretive abilities of the viewer. Vogel berates the rapid editing of JFK as a coercive tactic that overpowers the viewer: Due to the extremely brief duration of most of the shots – a second or less – the image is frequently withdrawn (more accurately, yanked away) from us before it has been fully absorbed or understood. Instead, it is instantaneously supplanted by another, initially often equally mystifying image. Quite a few of the images indeed remain opaque, decipherable perhaps only on a second viewing. … The outcome of a visual-verbal attack of such magnitude, intensity, and particularly duration is an overwhelmed, shackled spectator, compulsively, helplessly searching for connections, for clarity, for comprehension … The tempo of the work precludes mature reflection or comprehension, limiting retention and absorption as well. 62 This response to the film, however, does not account for any variability in viewer interpretive ability. The discussion of the variable competence of viewers in chapter 3.2 highlights the differing degrees of interpretive ability that a mass audience brings to a text. Vogel’s assumption is that all viewers will be confounded by the succession of images, and that the text is capable of “limiting retention and absorption” or that it “precludes mature reflection”. The viewer is certainly challenged by the permeation of genre boundaries evident in the images, but this does not bring about a universal response, but, rather, a heterogeneous variability of reactions. The conjunction of a multiplicity of images and genre styles with heterogeneity of interpretive responses cannot be limited to a singular reaction. The significant factor in the response to JFK is the extent to which the viewer accepts the argument of the text as pertaining to actuality, and the referentiality of the images, as against an interpretation that draws no connection between the text and actuality, but apprehends the images as a purely fictional narrative that is limited to the field of entertainment. There are, of course, a variety of responses between these extremes, and any belief in the text as being factual, or fictional, comes from the qualities of the images themselves, in conjunction with the multiple interpretive strategies that are implied by the conventions of genre. The permeation of genre boundaries in JFK draws attention to the way in which images interact within a text, and the characteristics of the text that encourage particular interpretive frames. This connection between the text and the viewer, however, is enhanced by the direct connection of the image to actuality, and it is this relation of the text that challenges postmodern notions of the image, in particular Foucault’s notion of the exteriority of discourse and the Baudrillardian theory of simulation and reality. 63 The forthcoming section examines the relations of the text with actuality, its function as reference or correspondence, and the effect that this relation has on the interpretation of the text. 62 63 Vogel, 1992, p.579. Foucault, 1972, Baudrillard, 1988a. 279 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK 7.4 The Use of Actuality Footage: Beyond Verisimilitude The previous sections have provided an outline of the interpretive frames and the textual characteristics of JFK, defining the transition between genre groupings and images. In this section the relations of the text and actuality will be considered, with particular attention to the partial correspondence of the image to events, and the implications this has on theoretical approaches to the interpretation of texts. The Text as Actuality Stone’s JFK highlights the connections that exist between actuality, cultural constructs and textual representations. JFK, as discourse, interacts with sociopolitical realities, and has intensified an already existing debate as to the integrity of government intelligence agencies. The film represents a social movement of considerable proportions, as Medhurst observes: Thirty years after John Kennedy’s assassination, more than half of the American public disbelieves the conclusions of the Warren Commission. In those three decades, Americans have experienced wars, riots, recessions, more assassination attempts, the dissolution of the traditional family, the breakdown of traditional mores, and epidemic of drugs and violence, and a loss of respect for and trust in government leaders. Most centrally, many Americans no longer believe that they control their own lives. 64 There is little doubting the fact that this film is interwoven with a complex tapestry of discursive formations, governmental, institutional, fascistic, sub-cultural and revolutionary modes of enunciation finding expression in the text. American President George Bush passed the ‘President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992’, which allowed for the release of all governmental records “except those that greatly compromise national security or a person’s privacy,” partly in response to the film. 65 The film inspired a social response sufficient to cause an alteration of the legislation of the United States of America. Stone’s appropriation of the Griersonian mode of classical documentary convention had the desired effect of reflecting the propagandistic techniques of the institutions with which he was contending for social acceptance as the accepted historical account. The response to this adopted mode of discourse was an approval of the authenticity of the text, to the extent that the legal and social profile of America was modified. The use of an institutional mode of documentary presentation in JFK brought about a social reaction in the form of the modification of laws concerning government files, a chain of events that supports Foucault’s notion of discourse as a material reality: 64 Medhurst, 1993, p.139, cites as the source: President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. (1992, October). Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, 28, 21342135. 65 From the Presidential act (note above), cited in Medhurst, 1983, p.140. 280 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Instead of being something said once and for all – and lost in the past like the result of a battle, a geological catastrophe, or the death of a king – the statement, as it emerges in its materiality, appears with a status, enters various networks and various fields of use, is subjected to transferences or modifications, is integrated into operations and strategies in which its identity is maintained or effaced. Thus the statement circulates, is used, disappears, allows or prevents the realization of a desire, serves or resists various interests, participates in challenge and struggle, and becomes a theme of appropriation or rivalry. 66 Foucault’s observations of the statement also apply to the social dynamics of the film. As a statement of audio/visual narrative JFK has, more than many other films, connected with the cultural and institutional fabrics of the American nation. The exteriority of the JFK discourse, by taking on the attributes of institutional authority in the style of classical documentary, and conjoining with the popular mythic narrative of Hollywood, has impacted with the institutional world it has imitated. The form of the discourse has assured its potency as an agent of social change and its convergence of form and genre have challenged cultural notions of truth, veracity and historical responsibility. The appearance of authenticity that results from the conjunction of television news images, home movies and the Zapruder film with Stone’s partially fictional and partly biographical narrative, supports Foucault’s observance of the exteriority of discourse as connected to actuality. To apply his linguistic theories to the imagery of JFK involves identifying the elements of the visual image that correlate with enunciative discursive functions. Foucault identifies the material existence of a statement as being inseparable from the statement itself: “A statement must have a substance, a support, a place and a date. And when these requisites change, it too changes identity.” 67 This notion can be seen at work in the images assembled within JFK. Audio/visual images are identifiable with the time, culture and purpose of their production as is evidenced by the characteristics of their ‘surface’ appearance and sound, just as sentences, through their combination of references, forms and structures are identifiable as being of a particular oeuvre, or resulting from a particular social circumstance. The exteriority of the images is a means of placing the text within a relative positioning of discourses, referred to by Foucault as the historical a priori; “the a priori of a history that is given, since it is that of things actually said.” 68 The images bear the mark of their time and circumstances, and of the discursive practices that have become intertwined in their very existence, as their modes of discourse are connected with the events and occurrences of their times, and utilize the rules of production and discourse that existed in that era. The effect of Stone’s appropriation of these culturally embedded images is to entice the viewer into an illusion of constructive reality, where the textual tools of the cultural construction of reality are re-presented within a text that is removed temporally from the culture of its origin. The subjectivity of the viewer is drawn from the Garrison biographical narrative, into a direct encounter with the historical television news images, and the level of added mediation imposed by the narrative of JFK is temporarily set aside. For those few 66 Foucault, 1972, p.105. ibid., p.101. 68 ibid., p.127. 67 281 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK moments, the viewer is ‘watching the news,’ and is experiencing a representation of the actual event, produced at the time of the event, not the reconstruction of the Oliver Stone film. The patriarchal figure of the ABC newsreader Walter Cronkite recalls a time of belief in media authority, when the institutions of the media were trusted and even admired by the viewer. This master narrative lives on in its progeny, as the modes of discourse used in contemporary news broadcasting demonstrate only minor modification in the rules of discourse that determine the content of television news. The mode of discourse adopted by the newsreader is characteristic of the genre, and carries with it implications of the actuality of the events described. This enhances the realism of the text, and establishes a level of mediation that is distinct from the dramatic enactment. The television news images appear as a text within a text, a non-dramatic construction of actuality within a dramatic narrative construction. The Zapruder film adds a third level of mediation, being a dondramatic and non-constructed representation of actuality. With the inclusion of each level of mediation the processes of mediation are themselves highlighted, as the shift from the documentary introduction to the biographical narrative accentuates the contrast between the socio-political setting, and the diegetic world of the film. The verisimilitude of the text is maximized by the interpretive strategies that are suggested by the text, and the connections that are implied by the similarities between the surface of the (visual) discourse with previous viewing experiences. It is the interpretive activity of the viewer that places the text within a multiplicity of textual and actual experiences, and establishes connections, articulations and flows between these territories. Interpretation in this sense is not the hermeneutic search for pure meaning, or attribution of authorial intention, or any assumption of transcendental truth, but simply the connection of one experience, object, event or text with another, and the associations and comparisons that are the result of such connections. The previous experience of television news is one that elicits a belief in the correlation between the image and actuality, and this correlation is not entirely negated by the Hollywood glamour of Stone’s film. The connection with previous viewing experience of actuality through television news representations remains intact, regardless of its context as an inclusion in the film. The convergence of form, in this case, refers the viewer to other textual ‘actualities,’ and encourages a similar sense of assurance, the belief that the representation correlates with actuality. The connection of actuality with the text is at its strongest with the use of the Zapruder film, and the evidentiality of this image (discussed earlier in this chapter), goes beyond the notion of verisimilitude. Its inclusion in JFK certainly brings an air of verisimilitude to the surrounding images, but this is a product of the conjunction of texts, not necessarily a result of the realism of Stone’s reconstruction. The Zapruder film appears in JFK as a recognizable and commodified text with the cultural significance of its images reaching beyond the bounds of its own existence as a ‘stand alone’ text. The images have appeared in television news reports, documentary films, books that investigate the legitimacy of the Warren Commission findings (most notably the images are referred to in books by Marrs and Garrison that form the basis of Stone’s film), 69 and in cinema, with its position of prominence 69 Marrs, 1989, and Garrison, 1990. 282 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK in JFK as a central feature of the opening montage and the courtroom scene. This short segment of film has been cited as evidence of the actual assassination on many occasions, and has become a cultural icon of actuality film. Its prior existence as a text has made JFK a more persuasive representation of the actual, as the authenticity of the Zapruder film had been established as social knowledge in the minds of many viewers before JFK had been produced. The perceived actuality of the Zapruder images, then, is the result of a cultural construct, or a social knowledge of the circumstances of the filming of the image, which results in the (experienced) viewer ‘knowing it is real’. Therefore, knowing the time, location and identity of the act of filming, and of the public identities depicted in the image verify the actuality of the image. The reception of this image results from a series of deductions which derive from social knowledge. Do I know the image? Do I know it is an image of an actual assassination? How have I gathered this knowledge? What are the associated meanings? The image itself is insignificant in comparison with the meanings that are associated with the image in determining its actuality. It is only when the status of the image as an ‘actuality image’ is culturally established that the contents of the image become significant, and the function of the image moves beyond that of verisimilitude and becomes a partial correlation with actuality. In such a case the image is accepted as a cultural record of what has occurred and the contents become pertinent to the investigation of historical actuality. Partial Correspondence The move beyond verisimilitude does not entail a return to empirical, objective positivism, where the object/event is proven to be factual by means of the image (which is Garrison’s argument in court), but that the image, given the indisputable authenticity of its filming, and the absence of manipulation of the image, provides an indication as to actual events. The connection between the image and actuality in the case of the Zapruder film has been recognized by the United States Government in their recent purchase of the film for the national archives from the Zapruder family for sixteen million dollars. 70 Oliver Stone paid the Zapruder family $40,000 for the use of the film in JFK. 71 The eighteen seconds of eight millimeter film has been valued at this level not for its narrative construction, or for its visual clarity, but for the authenticity of the image as the only existing visual record of the assassination. Its connection to the actual event provides no absolute indication as to the event, but offers more than verisimilitude in its representation. Although the image is not coequal to the event, it has a partially corresponding physical connection to the event, and this connection is an established cultural certitude. 70 71 See Pollock, 1999, and Johnston, 1999. Dingus, 1998. 283 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK Fig.7.4.1: Frame 313 of the Zapruder film – the moment of impact. 72 The relation between the audio/visual text and actuality, as revealed in the Zapruder film and its utilization in JFK, is not a positive relation of correspondence, but neither is it a disconnected, relativistic simulation. Postmodern approaches to text/actuality relations assert indeterminacy of the referential functions of the text. Baudrillard in particular posits that representation and reality can no longer be distinguished, and his position weakens the relation of images to actual events, as the simulation is considered to be coequal to reality. The image has an actual presence as a technological-virtual, and the technological-virtual image effects other aspects of actuality. This effect can be observed particularly in the Zapruder film, and its social affect through its inclusion in Stone’s JFK. Attitudes, opinions, and relations between the American people and their institutions of government have been profoundly altered by the widespread distribution of the film. The widespread acceptance of conspiracy theory by the American people 73 is also, to some extent attributable to Stone’s film. This relation between actuality and the text at first appears to confirm Baudrillard’s thesis, that the image has become indistinguishable from the reality. But on closer consideration, this example challenges an underlying assumption in Baudrillard’s reasoning. The representation, as pointed out several times over the course of this thesis, does not offer a complete correspondence to the actuality it represents. 74 Baudrillard’s assumption is that there should be a distinction between 72 Image from http://www.pathfinder.com/photo/week/zap313.htm as at January 1999. Staiger, 1996, p.48. 74 See chapters 2.2, 3.3 and 4.4. 73 284 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK the simulation and reality, but his argument relies on the given fact that reality is distinct from the image, and that the image itself has no validity as a reality. 75 The Zapruder film, however, stands as a paragon of the relation between the image and the actual. It provides a partial connection to the actual that does not depend on any notion of absolute correspondence, yet cannot be entirely disassociated from the physical event. The film has some measure of actuality in its content, despite its subjective positioning, its inferior image resolution and the lack of sound. This image is not only a simulation, but is to some extent a reproduction that provides evidence as to the actual event. By all means, various interpretations of the image will be arrived at, and divergent conclusions will be reached in response to the film, but this is a universal condition that cannot be limited to audio/visual representation. Eyewitness accounts will result in the same diversity of interpretation. The representation is connected with the actual event when social knowledge of the image confirms this connection. The inclusion of an image in a documentary or news program is, in itself, indicative of a connection with actuality. Any attempt to establish this connection as a complete correspondence is doomed to failure, as only a partial relation can be confirmed. Conversely (and this is the central proposition of this thesis), any attempt to completely disconnect the image and actuality overlooks the physical relation between pro-filmic events and the recorded image. The immediate tendency is to respond that the recorded image offers no guarantee of veracity, as the image is subject to manipulation, selection and construction. Indeed, this is the case, but this retort is only valid when applied to a claim of complete correspondence between image and actuality. If the connection between the image and actuality is recognized to be proportional, and to offer no certitude, then the relation becomes clearer. The screen image offers the nearest correlation between actuality and representation that is currently obtainable by available technologies, and confronts the viewer with a persuasive resemblance to physical actuality. The Baudrillardian position, by denouncing the conflation of reality with the image, asserts that there should be no apperception of reality in the image, as the image does not correspond to actuality. 76 This notion, however, does not account for the possibility of a partial correlation. The image does indicate something of the nature of events that have occurred in front of the camera (in the absence of image manipulation in post-production), and provide an accurate reproduction of that actuality. The dramatic performance of events before the camera is not a function of the image, but a theatrical device that operates at an entirely different level of virtualization, creating a simulation that is prior to the production of the image. The dramatic is a narrative-actual or a narrative-virtual that is presented within the context of the narrative, yet the physical enactment occurs in actuality. There is no doubt that this correlation has been reduced by computer generated images and advanced animation technology and special effects, but dramatic enactment provides the substance of the image in the majority of cases. The images observed in dramatically enacted film are a (technological-virtual) representation of a dramatic representation. This does not detract from the correspondence of the representation with the actual, but raises the awareness of the strata of virtualization, 77 and the discrepancies and illusions that can be encountered in screen images, as well as in 75 Baudrillard, 1988a, p.170. See note 73. 77 See chapter 3.3. 76 285 Documentary Reconstruction in JFK actual experience. Things are not always as they appear to be, be it on the cinema screen, or in ‘real life’. The Zapruder film, and in particular its utilization in JFK, offers an instance of the image that shows the viewer an actual event, but not the conclusive and entire detail of the event, or the complete understanding of the forces at work in the event. ‘Reality’ is present in the image, but this ‘reality’ is never a complete actuality. The reality of the image is its power as an artifact in its own right, not its mimetic or referential function. It can, and often does, offer evidence as to actual events, but in the end it is the measure of belief it arouses in the viewer that defines it as ‘reality’ or fiction. Absolutism as to either the ‘detached’ or the ‘real’ image should be tempered with the notion of partial correspondence, and the consciousness of the several strata of virtualization, and the processes of narrativization that comprise the film or television image. The notion of reality, defined in this thesis as a cultural construct, 78 and actuality, are evident to a degree in the image, as is observable in the ontological analysis of the Zapruder film in JFK. The image becomes part of a rhizome, becoming a component of the continuum of text/actual/culture/viewer, which is separated only by permeable and variable boundaries, which exist on a plane of consistency. There is no distinct separation between text/actual/culture/viewer, but the actual ‘seeps’ through, and permeates boundaries, and text, culture and viewer also violate conventional notions of boundary. The viewer, as a polyphonic, or nomadic subjectivity is continually formed by processes of subjectivation prior to language in a “zone of intersection” that combines “expressive, linguistic and non-linguistic substances (belonging to a finite, preformed world, the world of the Lacanian Other) and incorporeal registers with infinite, creationist virtualities.” 79 To separate image, actuality and viewer is to overlook the capacity of the image, and the viewer to transmit and consist of actuality. JFK embodies the potential of texts and viewers to integrate actuality and the cultural construct of reality in a conjunction of elements. The heterogeneity of the text is analogous to the multiple constituents of the cultural construct, and of the nomadic subjectivity of the viewer. The Baudrillardian declaration of a simulation in which there are “signs which dissimulate nothing,” does not allow for the capacity of the audio/visual text to partially correspond to the actual, or of the viewer to experience actuality in the text without requiring an absolute reality in the text. The notions of partial degrees of actuality, and of the permeation of boundaries, account for the heterogeneity of the text, viewer and culture without delimiting the potentiality of the traversal of actuality across textual boundaries. 78 79 See chapter 1.3. Guattari, 1995, pp.24-25. 286 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Chapter 8 CONVERGENCE OF ACTUALITY WITH IMAGINARY CONTENT IN FORREST GUMP AND CONTACT The previous chapters have been concerned with the strategies of narrativization that are applied to actuality images in documentary (chapter five), and the convergence of form and genre in texts that combine moments of actuality with dramatic representation (in chapters six and seven). In each of the examples discussed the images have remained separate, as discreet segments of one or the other genre or form, and the analysis has concerned the relations between these segments. The ontological analysis of images, however, is incomplete without some recognition of the possibilities that are raised by the union of dramatic representation with existing (and usually historical), actuality images within a single frame. Manipulation of visual images casts doubt on the veracity of the image, and complicates the issue of evidentiality in images. In this chapter I will analyze the occurrence of combined images, where the dramatic and the actual coexist within a single frame. The actuality image has never been immune from manipulation, as traditional photographic development techniques allow for the alteration and modification of content. In the case of images that combine actuality with drama within the frame this dichotomy is exaggerated, as imagination coexists with actuality. The actual is invaded by the dramatic, and appropriated as a part of the dramatic narrative, usually through the insertion of a character into an existing image, or, conversely, the integration of an actual character into a dramatically enacted scene. The most prominent exponent of such manipulation in recent years has been Robert Zemeckis, with the appropriation of actuality images in Forrest Gump (1994), and the digitally constructed images of President Bill Clinton in Contact (1996). This analysis is primarily concerned with the effects on interpretive strategies of combining images, and of manipulation of the image, as opposed to the dynamics of divergent form and genre in the juxtaposition of images. The convergence of form and genre is not only an adjacent placement of images, but in this case is a literal convergence of multiple images into a single image. The result of convergent images is a narrativization of actuality that occurs, as the actual becomes narrative, or, alternatively, the fictional narrative is momentarily congruent with images of the actual. 287 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact 8.1 Combining the Actual with the Act Actuality Images in Forrest Gump The manipulation of actuality images can be observed in several instances during the fictional encounters of Forrest Gump with figures of public importance and moments of historical significance. Images of public figures engaging in direct conversation with Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), provide humorous scenarios in which the mentally retarded character stumbles into several scenes of momentous importance. The inclusion of elements of actuality in the images provides the film with a connection to the cultural history of America in the twentieth century and offers the viewer a retrospective account of the changes that have profoundly altered the collective consciousness. Robert Zemeckis introduces actuality footage into the fictional narrative in gradual increments, firstly with historical footage of the Klu Klux Klan as he reveals the origins of the main character’s name, being that of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the racist group. This image is used in illustrative documentary mode as an accompaniment to the voice narration. The actuality footage is not visually integrated into the diegetic world of the film, but the verbal message provides the semantic link between the diegetic world of the narrative and the historical film. The narration, spoken by the main character, operates in a similar manner to the voice-over commentary of classical documentary, with the images providing an illustrative depiction of the verbal content. Fig. 8.1.1: Historical images of the Klu Klux Klan used as visual-illustrative images over the narrator’s voice Fig. 8.2.2: The narration claims that this is General Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the K.K.K., after whom the character, Forrest Gump was named. The young Forrest Gump’s ensuing encounter with a dramatic rendition of Elvis Presley, concludes with the young Forrest watching images of the actual Elvis on television through a shop window, and establishes the lighthearted relationship between the non-fictional representation and the diegetic world of Forrest Gump that provides much of the humor in the remainder of the film. In contrast to the previous historical footage the Elvis image is integrated into the Forrest Gump narrative, as this is a character that interacts with the protagonist. 288 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Fig. 8.1.3: Young Forrest Gump with the (dramatically enacted) Elvis Presley The television image of the actual Elvis (as opposed to his dramatic rendition), is embedded within the same image, but remains separately framed within that image. This example amounts to an intertextual (or hypertextual), reference, where the existing Elvis image is appropriated by Zemeckis for the fictional narrative. The illusion of interaction between Presley and Gump consists of two separate and clearly distinguishable dramatic and actual images, where the identities of the actor, and the ‘real’ Elvis are evident to the viewer as a result of the framing of the Presley image in the television screen. The actual has been integrated into the narrative to a greater extent than the initial ‘documentary style’ insertion of an actuality image. The illusion achieved by the transition from dramatic enactment (the Elvis actor), to the actual Elvis (as a television image), provides gradual increments of actuality as Zemeckis introduces the concept of the convergence of actuality and fictional narrative. Fig. 8.1.4: Young Forrest watching the actual Elvis Presley on a shop window television. 289 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact The third example of actuality footage in Forrest Gump, however, involves the insertion of the actor within the actuality image, as governor George Wallace addresses the students outside Alabama University concerning his opposition to the admission of black Americans as students. Forrest appears at his side during the address, but there is no interaction between the figures in the image. Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump appears standing next to the Governor as he delivers his address. There is no recognition by the actual public identities of the dramatic persona in the image. Fig. 8.1.5: Forrest Gump inserted in the image of Governor Wallace at the Alabama University The following example of manipulation, however, involves President Kennedy congratulating the All-American Football Team, and shaking Forrest Gump’s hand. On this occasion the integration of the dramatic and the actual is further achieved by the manipulation of voice, as Forrest’s statement, “I’ve got to pee,” brings a brief comment in response from Kennedy. This is the first occasion on which the fictional character (Forrest Gump), appears to interact with the actual identity. The manipulation of the figure of Kennedy, according to Prince, involves the alteration of the image in order to give the appearance of speech: President Kennedy speaking to Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump resulted from twodimensional painting, made to look like 3D, according to Pat Byrne, Technical Director at Post Effects, a Chicago effects house that specializes in digital imaging. The archival footage of Kennedy, once digitized, was repainted with the proper phonetic mouth movements to match the scripted dialogue and with highlights on his face to simulate the corresponding jaw and muscle changes. Morphs were used to smooth out the different painted configurations of mouth and face. 1 The image of the President is momentarily a convergence with actuality, seen in the form of his body, and in the virtual movements of his body. The image has distorted the actual event in order to integrate the dramatic event. The movements of 1 Prince, 1996, p30. 290 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact the mouth and face are, however, unconvincing in their approximation of actual facial expression. Fig. 8.1.6: Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump inserted in the image with President Kennedy, greeting the All-American Football Team. The encounter with President Johnson, however, provides the most credible integration of dramatic persona with actual identity, as the President engages in a conversation with Gump. The interaction between the image of the president and the inserted actor gives the impression of natural dialogue, with the manipulation of Johnson’s facial expressions being barely detectable. The earlier examples of image manipulation, which demonstrate no attempt to provide a persuasive imitation of actuality, are in comparison clumsy in their technique. Presumably this is an intentional device of the director, who has no need to convince the audience of the reality of the event, but is content to allow the manipulation to remain visible and clearly detectable. The interaction between Johnson and Gump, however, provides a feasible resemblance of actuality, and challenges the perception of the viewer, who must rely on social knowledge, previous viewing experience and comparison with the other manipulated images in the text in order to distinguish between this conversation and other enacted events in the film. Fictional Appropriation of Actuality Other examples of image manipulation follow, but none rival the realism of the Johnson scene. The appearance of Forest Gump with John Lennon openly discloses the manipulation of voice, as the lip movements bear little resemblance to the recorded voice, and the brief encounter with President Nixon, where Gump is offered a suite in the Hotel on the night of the infamous Watergate ‘bugging’ scandal, also fails to offer true ‘lip-synchronization,’ as Nixon’s mumbling voice does not correspond exactly to the facial movements of the image. 291 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Fig. 8.1.7: Forrest Gump inserted in the image with President Johnson. A realistic manipulation of images to produce a persuasive dialogue. The perceptual realism of the image is created by the manipulation of the image in order to imitate the normal facial movements of speech, as Prince observes: President Kennedy speaking in Forrest Gump is a falsified correspondence which is nevertheless built from internally valid perceptual information. Computer modeling of synthetic visual speech and facial animation relies on existing microanalyses of human facial expression and phonetic mouth articulations. The digital-effects artist used these facial cues to animate Kennedy's image and sync his mouth movements with the scripted dialogue. 2 However accurate the illusion of a speaking manipulated image may or may not be the persuasiveness of the perceptual illusion created by the images, and the correlation between voice and facial movement are not the issues that require examination in this case. The images combine elements of two divergent genres, firstly the actuality images of public figures that belong in the realm of television news and documentary, or of historical archive, and, secondly, the figure of Tom Hanks in the part of Forrest Gump, a fictional character in a fictional narrative. The convergence of images confronts the viewer with a conflict of interpretive strategies, as the simultaneity of fictional and actual personalities within one frame presents a textual conundrum. The coexistence of actual and dramatic personae deconstructs the referential function of the actuality image, as any credibility of the image in terms of actual occurrence is negated by the presence of the dramatic figure. The fictional narrative, on the other hand, is not negated by the actuality image, but is enhanced by the impossibility of the fictional conjunction of the two images. The imaginary becomes dominant, appropriating the actual in a conversion of actuality into fiction. The presence of dramatic personae transforms the actuality image and integrates it into the diegetic world of the fiction. This process is more than merely a removal of authenticity or factuality from the actuality image, as the image is not left ‘neutral,’ with its veracity absent, but is actively subsumed by the fictional event. 2 ibid., p.34. 292 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact The images of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon are made imaginary by their conjunction with the image of Forrest Gump. The manipulation of words and movements notwithstanding, it is the convergence of images that indicates the absence of factuality. Alterations of the verbal discourse are not the decisive element in the interpretation of the images as fictional, but, rather, it is the visual manipulation. The cohabitation of the frame by identities removed by time and space creates the illusion that displaces the expectation of authenticity that ordinarily accompanies images of public identities. Actuality images, when combined with dramatic personae, cease to demand a referential interpretation as the manipulation of the image breaks the expectation of any correlation between the actual world and the image. There is, however, a residual effect of bewilderment at the fictional character conversing with the actual president. The text plays on the viewer’s awareness of the impossibility of the image, and engages the viewer with the contradiction of reality and story, and the interpretive processes that are brought to light by this convergence. The combined image gives the appearance, or approximation of actuality while demonstrating its unfeasibility by the incongruity of its components. The success of these scenes is reliant on the social knowledge of the viewer, who is presumed to be aware of the identities that are portrayed. A less significant or less recognizable actuality image would be overpowered by the diegesis, and would in all likelihood be assumed to be a component of the fictional world. Conversely, the inclusion of an insignificant dramatic character from the diegesis would be subsumed by the actuality, and would (unless specifically identified), be assumed to be an authentic component of the actuality image. It is only the combination of universally identifiable public figures with the principal character of the narrative that the balance of fiction and factuality can be effectively utilized. The familiarity of public identity and actor is the crucial ingredient for the identification of images which combine actuality with dramatic images. The image not only combines dramatic and actual content, but this convergence implies subsequent connections with social and cultural fields, and utilizes multiple interpretive strategies. The modes of discourse displayed in convergent images demonstrate a Foucauldian exteriority, in which they interact with the social field, and relate comparatively with the discursive formations of the component images that comprise the convergence. The forthcoming section defines the rules of formation that apply to the modes of discourse that are apparent in actuality based images and dramatic reenactments, and the degrees of variation that lie between the two. 293 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact 8.2 Discursive Rules of Formation of in Film and Television Genres Interpretation of Manipulated Images The manipulated images in Forrest Gump and Contact raise some important questions. Is there evidence in the image, or is there an evidential convention of images? To what extent is an image capable of corresponding with the actual? This analysis will examine the representation of actuality in screen images, and establish a hierarchical model of representation, where the image is partially, but never entirely a correlate of the actual. The images themselves are, of course, inseparable from their interpretation by the viewer, who applies interpretive strategies to the image, and accredits the image with various qualities of authenticity, veracity and verisimilitude. The subject of this investigation is determinants of interpretation, and the convergence of actuality with the dramatic. The manipulated images in Forrest Gump provide an opportunity to evaluate the significance of the conventional representation of actuality in screen images. The departure from an image that is comprised of entirely dramatic representation, or, conversely, entirely representative of actuality, challenges assumptions of referentiality. This subversion of the accepted modalities of representation highlights the referential functions of the actuality image through the absence of correlation between the image and the actual. This absence of correlation amounts to a breach of the normal requirement for veracity (where the subject of the representation is an actual and significant public identity). The conventions or ‘rules’ of representation have been disregarded, as the assumption that a person of social consequence will be represented in a manner that reflects their public position is disrupted by the presence of the dramatic identity. A viewer generally expects images to represent actuality according to the conventions that exist in other texts, and will tend to apply these conventions to the interpretation of the text unconsciously. Foucault, in his analysis of discourse, identifies the conformity to rules of use as the discursive formation: Whenever one can describe, between a number of statements, such a system of dispersion, whenever, between objects, types of statement, concepts or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correlations, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation … The conditions to which the elements of this division (objects, mode of statement, concepts, thematic choices) are subjected we shall call the rules of formation. The rules of formation are conditions of existence (but also of coexistence, maintenance, modification, and disappearance) in a given discursive division. 3 The rules of discursive formation imply the interpretive and correlative relations that ordinarily accompany that formation. It is also feasible to apply this notion to the screen image, defining the rules of formation of a screen genre, say, for example, the television news, which demands particular rules of formation in order to be 3 Foucault, 1972, p.38. 294 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact interpreted as the authentic text that refers directly to actual events. 4 On the other hand, the rules of formation that may apply to the science fiction film indicate a removal of the image from the actual, both through the dramatic representation, and through the content of the text. The presence of dramatic content in a television news format, in the absence of any explanatory commentary from a news reader, would surely amount to a departure from the rules of formation that define the genre of television news. Conversely, a newsreader’s commentary throughout the entire duration of a fiction film would breach the conventions of the rules of formation for that genre. The discursive rules of formation are a significant indicator for the viewer as to the relations between the text and actuality, and how the notion of reality should be applied to the text in the interpretive strategies of viewing. As the previous chapters have demonstrated, the conventions of a genre suggest interpretive strategies, and encourage an attribution of veracity according to the ‘reality claims’ of the genre. The assumption encouraged by the manipulated images of Forrest Gump is not the usual fictional or news-documentary interpretation, where the image either does, or does not represent the actual. The depiction of actual public identities is complicated by the presence of a dramatic identity, and the association of such figures with their normal fields of representation is replaced by uncertainty. The interpretation of public identities in film images suggests a direct relation between the image and actual events, merely through the previous experience of this convention in news and documentary images. In order to disconnect a film image of a public identity from the actual it must be manipulated, or generated by other means, such as animation, hand drawing, or the collage of images as seen in Forrest Gump. The presence of a dramatic actor in the image amounts to a breach of the rules of formation that apply to actuality images. The referential validity of the image is dependent on the verisimilitude of its contents, and the blend of fictional and actual content neutralizes any direct reference to the actual in the image. This is not to say that there is no reference to the actual in the image, but it becomes a reference to extra-textual cultural awareness, rather than a depiction of actual events. Manipulation of the image is commonplace in contemporary film production, with adventure, ‘sci-fi,’ action and fantasy films extensively employing computer generated effects. 5 Manipulation in this context is considered acceptable, and seen as advantageous as it allows for the creation of images that would otherwise be impossible to produce through conventional dramatic enactment. In the genres of fictional realism, and of documentary and news, manipulation of images is understood to be a form of deception, where the ‘honesty’ of the image is sullied by any alteration. There are, however, exceptions to this rule of formation. Even the genre of documentary allows for the illustration of a point with image manipulation if it is within acceptable rules of formation, for example, the graphic animation of blood cells or other body parts in a medical documentary, or the computer generated 4 Hartley, 1992, p.83, points out the significance of genre expectations in the interpretation of television news. 5 Recent examples of this technology abound, but are particularly evident in George Lucas’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and the A. and L. Wachowski film The Matrix (1999). 295 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact images of other worlds in the recent television documentary series, The Planets. 6 These images are artificially generated, and could not be defined as actuality images, but they are nevertheless useful in putting forward an argument or demonstrating a concept that cannot be represented effectively by conventional methods of filming. The rules of formation of documentary genres allows for the visual-illustrative mode to utilize manipulated images in order to provide a visual image of subjects that cannot otherwise be depicted, or that are most effectively represented by manipulated, or artificially generated images. The Conventions of Genre and Modes of Reference The rules of formation offer a cultural assurance that the discourse is operating within the boundaries of a discursive division, in this case, a film or television genre. The characteristics of a genre indicate the ontological status of the image, suggesting to the viewer a mode of reference to actuality that is applied in the audio/visual text. Set out below is a classificatory listing of the modes of referentiality, working from the maximum correlation between image and the actual, in gradation towards the minimum correlation. It is important to reiterate the fact that all of these classifications consist of audio/visual representations, as the image does not equate to the actual, but can be quantified in terms of correlation with the actual. • • The evidential mode of reference, in which the image provides detailed information concerning the actual event (for example, the Zapruder film), includes images that manifest actual events, occurrences or actions. The image ostensibly represents actuality without any mediation, apart from the unavoidable subjectivity of the camera. There is no conscious representational activity in the production of the image, that is, the action is not dramatically enacted in any way for the benefit of the camera, but happens to have occurred within the camera’s optical field. 7 Spontaneous response to the presence of the camera is, of course, unavoidable, and does not detract from the evidential value of the image. The indicative mode of reference, where the image depicts objects, people, or events, as a reference to the conditions of, or testimony pertaining to the subject. An image of a particular individual may be used as a particularization of a general event or activity, or an interviewee may indicate evidential value in spaces or objects. The image depicts the actual, but specific details are not considered to be evidential (for example, the many images of locations in documentary in order to refer to prior events in the space). 8 Veracity is expected and assumed by the viewer, and any departure from veracity is interpreted as a breach of the rules of formation. This mode provides 6 The documentary series The Human Body, by Richard Dale (1998) employs computer generated images of internal body organs in order to represent aspects of the body which cannot be filmed by conventional methods. The BBC space exploration documentary series, The Planets (1999) features extensive computer animation of ‘reconstructed’ planet surfaces. 7 The presence of the camera is discussed in greater detail in chapter 5.2. 8 The analysis of Ray Quint’s Return to Sandakan in chapter 5 provides a valuable example of the indicative mode of reference. 296 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact • • • indications of actual events, and attempts to employ all means to represent the event apart from re-construction or re-enactment. The imitative mode of reference involves reconstruction of events, usually in authentic settings and costumes, or settings, actors and costumes that bear resemblance to the actual. The imitative mode does not require conscious interpretation of actions, but, rather, a conscious minimization of dramatic interpretation. The event is reconstructed with a minimum of deviation from the known actuality (for example, the Dealey plaza presidential entourage as reconstructed by Oliver Stone in JFK, but not the speculative inclusion of extra assassins). The identities of the original subjects are either copied or eluded by the exclusion of facial features from the image, but a dramatic enactment of the identity is concealed. The imitative mode utilizes reconstruction of the actual that refers to an awareness of the historical event. The depictive mode of reference is most commonly found in historical drama, and involves the enactment of actual events. Absolute authenticity in setting and events is not required or assumed, but approximations of the historical events are acceptable in order to give the viewer an impression of the actual. The actual event is secondary to the dramatic enacting of the event, or, in other words, the narrativization of the event is considered to be of greater importance than the historical authenticity of the image, which is constructed through re-enactment of the actual. The fictional mode of reference is where the image bears no direct relation to the actual apart from the inevitable inclusion of some aspects of actuality (discussed in chapter 2.1). This mode may involve actual locations, but characters are not actual identities. Various degrees of resemblance to actuality, from realism to fantasy, are possible in the fictional mode, but all are distinct from the actual event. The fictional mode can be divided into many sub-classifications of reference, but when we move away from the narrativization of actuality, the detailed analysis of such modes of fictional reference cease to be relevant to the subject of this thesis. The discursive rules of formation determine to what extent a viewer will interpret the content of the image as pertaining to actuality, or as fiction. They indicate the extent to which a correlation between the actual and the image will become a component of the interpretation of the text. The referential function of the image cannot be easily defined as fictional, or non-fictional, but as the modalities above indicate, there are several gradations of referentiality. The relations of the text to actuality are a complex interaction of discursive rules of formation with social knowledge and experience of actuality. Foucault points out that reference is not only a correlation, but that discourse reflects the conditions in which it arises, or to which it refers. The distinction between a statement and a proposition can be likened to the distinction between the evidential mode of reference, and the fictional mode of reference, in that one refers specifically to an actuality, and the other to a state of being, and a field of relations: 297 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact A statement is not confronted (face to face, as it were) by a correlate – or the absence of a correlate – as a proposition has (or has not) a referent, or as a proper noun designates someone (or no one). It is linked rather to a ‘referential’ that is made up not of ‘things’, ‘facts’, ‘realities’, or ‘beings’, but of laws of possibility, rules of existence for the objects that are named, designated or described within it, and for the relations that are affirmed or denied within it. The referential of the statement forms the place, the condition, the field of emergence, the authority to differentiate between individuals or objects, states of things and relations that are brought into play by the statement itself. 9 The image refers not only to the subject it depicts, but to laws of representation, conventions of narrative, and the complex heterogeneity that is implied by Foucault’s notion of the “statement”. The extra-textual world that is invoked by the image is far more expansive than the explicit content of the image. The rules and relations that operate in the actual world are also manifest in the image, particularly in the evidential and indicative modes of representation, but also in the imitative, depictive and fictional modes. The convergence of the fictional and evidential modes of reference, as is seen in Forrest Gump on several occasions, is a playful defiance of such rules and relations, as the fictional character removes the actual (though manipulated), images of public identities from their rules of formation, and applies the less restrictive rules of fictional representation, where the imaginary is free to disregard social conventions and the relations between the fictional and actual identities within the image. One must, however, when considering discourse in a more general sense than the specific audio/visual text, maintain an awareness of the differentiation between enunciation in its immediacy, and the screen image. The interplay between participants in enunciation is a direct and immediate response to statements, situations and referents, whereas the recorded visual image can depict statements, behaviors, events and scenarios that are removed both by time and space from the viewer. The film text indicates the discursive and cultural environment of its inception, but this is not an immediate responsive interaction as is the case with conversation. Film and television images are, however, parts of a broader, more culturally generic discourse, one that intersects with the enunciative realm of discourse through the post-textual responses of the viewer, and one that brings about a modification and revision of the cognitive schemata of the viewer. When considering the modalities of reference in regard to Forrest Gump and Contact, the viewer’s awareness that these ‘impossible’ images had to have been manipulated, and that the image is comprised of a combination of two images, involves a meta-linguistic awareness of a convergence of the modes of reference. The evidential function of the actuality image is subsumed by the fictional, and the reference to the actual is, although extant, not considered absolute. The contrast between the use of montage in juxtaposing images (as utilized by Stone in JFK), and the convergence of modes of reference within a single image, brings the referential value of the image into question. In JFK each image maintains a unity, separated by the distinct ‘cut’ between images. The manipulation of images, and the convergence of elements from multiple images, however, demands a theoretical approach that accounts for the possibility of proportional gradation of referential functions of the 9 Foucault, op. cit., p.91. 298 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact image, and can conceive of the meanings derived from the image as partially interpretive, and partially indexical. 8.3 The Demise of the Indexical Image The referential functions of the image have been shown in the previous section to consist of a gradated variation between absolutes of the actual and the imaginary. The visual representation is by its very nature separate from its referent, and therefore, as a discrete actuality in its own right, must be related to the subject matter that it depicts by the viewer. The image and the referent are connected by the discursive rules of formation considered above, but are also connected by the resemblance of the image to the referent, not through conventions of representation, but through similitude of sensory perception. The notion of gradated reference is not entirely new, but can be found in the earliest stages of semiotic inquiry. The endeavor of this section is to reexamine the means by which the viewer connects the representation with actuality. Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness in the Image. The notion of the indexical image, as suggested by Peirce, 10 and further developed by Deleuze, 11 is a class of images that contain “everything which only exists by being opposed by and in a duel … exertion-resistance, action-reaction, excitation-response, situation-behaviour, individual-milieu.” 12 Peirce posits three attributes of images, firtsness, secondness and thirdness. Firstness is a perceptual relation of the image that, according to Deleuze, expresses “qualities or powers considered for themselves, without reference to anything else”. 13 The attribute of “secondness,” (which includes the indexical), involves the intersection between objects, the binary opposition, and the relations between objects. The cohabitation of the image by the fictional character and the actual identity provides an opposition that extends the notion of ‘secondness’ beyond the conception of objects within the image that are engaged in a relationship of duality. Certainly, the two personae are seen together, and are opposed within the image, but the indexical relationship becomes more complex when one considers that the dramatic character is digitally interpolated. The opposition moves beyond that of soldier to president, or of stupid to intelligent, and becomes an opposition of the dramatic to the real, or of the actor to the actual. The ‘secondness’ of the image is combined with ‘thirdness’, as the opposition extends to become a relation of thought to the duality in the image. The notion of the demise of the indexical image involves the relations between the actual world and the image, with the screen image representing occurrences and 10 Peirce, 1931-1958. Deleuze, 1986, pp. 98, 197, and also c.f. Deleuze1989, p.30. 12 ibid., p. 98. 13 ibid., p. 98. 11 299 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact people as they exist and function in the actual. Deleuze describes the quality of secondness as: …The category of the Real, of the actual, of the existing, of the individuated. And the first figure of secondness is that in which power-qualities become ‘forces’, that is to say are actualised in particular states of things, determinate space-times, geographical and historical milieux, collective agents or individual people. 14 The relations between the actual and the image, the actual and itself (that is, the interaction between forces, things and people), and the interpretive frame by which the viewer perceives actuality in the representation, are made problematic when the actuality image subverts the indexical representation. The image maintains a semblance of the actual, but the correlative relations are dissembled by the manipulation of the voice and image. Any correlation between the image and the actual event, and the laws, interactions and relations between forces in the actual event is obscured by the disparity between the image and actuality brought about by manipulation, and the representation then becomes an antithesis of the indexical image. The indexical function of the image (if considered a positive value), becomes a negative indexical value in a representation that depicts combinations of identity and cohabitation of the frame that cannot possibly be actual. The indexical image gives every indication of being a representation of the actual, but the reversal of the indexical function draws attention to the inadequacy of the interpretive frame that equates actuality images with actuality (that is, the viewer’s conception of a correlation between image and actuality). This meta-interpretive activity is the result of an indexical relation that does not denote the actual, but disrupts the denotation of the image by rendering them secondary to the fact that this is an ‘impossible image,’ and that the meeting of the two identities is artificially constructed. First Qualisign (1.1) Icon (2.1) Rheme (3.1) Second Synsign (1.2) Index (2.2) Dicisign (3.2) Third Legisign (1.3) Symbol (2.3) Argument (3.3) Representation Object Interpretant Fig. 8.3.1: Peirce’s table of signification, after Deleuze, 1989, p.287. The notion of ‘thirdness’ is expressed, according to Peirce, in the symbolic image, where the objects in the image embody other ideas, objects or relations. According to Deleuze, the relations of thirdness can be delineated into two areas: that of natural relations and of abstract relations. Thirdness perhaps finds its most adequate representation in relation; for the relation is always third, being necessarily external to its terms. And philosophical tradition distinguishes two kinds of relations, natural and abstract relations – signification belonging to the first kind, and law or sense belonging to the second kind. 15 14 15 Deleuze, 1986, p.98. ibid., p. 198. 300 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact The actual/dramatic images of Forrest Gump clearly provide the viewer with abstract relations, as the laws (conventions), of representation are implicit in the impossible combination of actual identity and actor. The inclusion of the contrasting identities within the images imply more than their facsimiles explicitly display: the awareness of the two milieus from which they have emerged, the temporal displacement implicit in the combined image, and the distinction between the functions of actor, and of public identity. The implication of these images is that the indexical relation between the representation and actuality is not an innate quality of the screen image, but is conditional on the utilization of technology by the filmmaker. The image itself provides no assurance of actuality, despite the inclusion of actual identities and events. The indexical function of the images in Forrest Gump is displaced, rather than extended, by the symbolic implications of the images, in that the correlation of the images with actuality is made impossible, and the discursive rules of formation overshadow the contents of the image itself (that is, the impossibility of the cohabitation of the frame by actor and public identity outweighs the significance of the events portrayed by the images). The ‘thirdness’ of the image, in this case evident in the convergence of contrasted identities in the frame, makes the indexical function superfluous, as an awareness of the actor/public identity juxtaposition invalidates the referential veracity of the image. The convergence is, however, not alone in negating the indexical function of the image. The actual image of President Johnson, a realistic and authentic image, is rendered unfeasible by the breach of social convention engaged in by the president, as he requests to see Forrest Gump’s wounded buttock in a public place, and in front of the camera. (See fig. 8.3.2) The actual relations between forces, powers and people that are evident in the image (that is, the qualities of secondness), are shown to be artificially constructed and manipulated, thereby removing the legitimacy of the interaction, and replacing the synsign with the legisign (figure 8.3.1). The interplay of forces, individual people and objects in the screen image is overshadowed by the artificiality of the image. The denotation of the two identities is negated by the breach of the rules of formation in the indexical reading, and is overshadowed by the symbolic meaning that is suggested by the meeting of actor and president. Deleuzian Fourthness: The Time-Image Deleuze proposes a move beyond Peirce’s thirdness as the integration of the timeimage into cinema. The Deleuzian time-image leaves the restrictions of the movement-image, and depicts the awareness of time within opsigns and sonsigns (optical and sound signs), that represent occurrences that are not simultaneous with the action of the diegesis. The link between the image and action (the movementimage), is augmented by the time-image. This combines the secondness and thirdness of actualities and relations, with the mental-image, the representation of memory, and the instantaneous conjunctions of time and space that are achieved by montage: 301 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact The sensory-motor link was broken, and the interval of movement produced the appearance as such of an image other than the movement-image … There was to arise a whole series of new signs, constitutive of a transparent material, or of a time-image irreducible to the movement-image, but not without a determinable relationship with it. We could no longer consider Peirce’s thirdness as a limit of the system of images and signs. 16 Deleuze identifies the perception of time in montage as the indirect time-image, which is the temporal jump between shots that depicts time as an absence. The conjunction of shots that represent an altered time and space implies the passage of time indirectly through the change of image. The time that has elapsed is not directly represented, but in order for the differentiation between shots to have occurred in the diegesis the implication is that time must have passed, without it having been displayed in the text. The fictional meeting of Forrest Gump with various public identities, however, provides a challenge to the notion of montage as entirely comprising the time image. The direct time-image represents time within the bounds of the frame, bringing the concept of montage within the frame itself. Elements within the frame are juxtaposed, implying contrast, as is achieved by Eisenstein’s notion of intellectual montage, but rather than a combination of meanings drawn from the combination of shots, a compound of meaning arising from the interaction of elements within the image. Deleuze highlights this possibility, insisting that the direct time-image is capable of providing an internal montage: It has often been pointed out, in modern cinema, that the montage was already in the image, or that the components of an image already implied montage. There is no longer an alternative between montage and shot (in Welles, Resnais or Godard). Sometimes montage occurs in the depth of the image, sometimes it becomes flat: it no longer asks how images are linked, but ‘What does the image show? This identity of montage with the image itself can appear only in the conditions of the direct time-image. 17 The images that combine Forrest Gump with actual identities go beyond this notion of montage within the frame. The frame itself is conceptually divided, as the images are brought together as separate elements that are united only through manipulation. The boundary between the two elements of the montage are distinctly identifiable, as the ‘line’ around the dramatic identity within the actuality images in Forrest Gump, or the ‘line’ around the actual identity within the dramatically constructed images in Contact. This amounts to a literal cinematic collage, rather than montage, although the intellectual implications of the conjunction are maintained. The distinction between the elements of the image is thoroughly disguised, unlike the obvious distinctions between elements of photographic collage, but the noticeable distinction in this case is an intellectual divergence between actuality images and the dramatic performance. The actual identity and the actual setting, which are a part of the one image, are intellectually removed from the inserted actor, who is foreign to the image. Once again, it cannot be sufficiently stressed that it is the interpretive strategy of the viewer that determines the 16 17 Deleuze, 1989, p.34. ibid., p.42. 302 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact divergence of the actual and the dramatic in the image, particularly through cultural awareness of the identities that are represented. The convergence of the images does not bring about a unity, but a cohabitation of the frame, with the means of determining the boundary existing as a function of the cultural construction of reality, and the division of visual images into categories that accompany this construction. The leap in time and space implied by montage in the case of Forrest Gump occurs within the image, between elements of the image, but is determined through the conjunction of the viewer’s cultural construct of reality with the image. (See the analysis of fig. 8.3.2). Fig.8.3.2: Forrest Gump displays his wounded buttock to President Johnson An Analysis of Fig. 8.3.2 according to the Qualities of Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness and Fourthness as stated by Deleuze. Firstness – iconic – qualisign - rheme: Deleuzian Affection-image • The colors, textures, facial features, clothing and the affect of the qualities perceptual experience. • The initial response to the object/person, the image equals the response. • Johnson’s face (laughter), his stride across the room, the posture of the attendant soldiers, and Gump’s crouching position – the physical occurrence, the actions – bending, walking, standing straight. Secondness – indexical – synsign – dicisign: Deleuzian Action-image 303 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact • • • • The interaction between objects/people/forces. The things the image reveals about the state of actuality – what is happening – the actions and interactions represented by the image – a response that combines knowledge of the actual with the occurrences in the image. The positive value of Index: Johnson’s response to Gump’s action, his action in leaving (with laughter), the recognition of the presence of the President in the behavior of the soldiers, and in Gump’s willingness to do whatever the president requests. The interactions of forms and powers within the image Negative value of Index: Johnson meeting Gump, fictional character meeting actual identity, the interaction between the diegetic and the extra-textual worlds – the image is in no way a possible representation of actuality. Identities that could not actually meet in the image are visually combined. Thirdness – symbolic - legisign - argument: Deleuzian Relation-image • The objects/people/forces in the image reveal meanings that relate to other objects/people/forces - the response involves a conceptual linkage of ideas that is usually culturally determined (rules, conventions, association) – Goes beyond the image itself to social knowledge. • The ramifications of the actor and the actual appearing within the frame together produce symbolic meanings. The appearance of the image implies meanings separate from the components of the image, the implication of the enactment being contrasted with actuality. • The recognition of authority in the posture of the soldiers, the uniforms that imply a military status, the suit and tie of President Johnson that indicates his status as distinct from the military personnel. • The ridiculous absurdity of Gump’s behavior in a public setting. Deleuzian Fourthness: The Time-image • The temporal displacement of the image of Tom Hanks from the original actuality image of the President and the other soldiers, which distinguishes the convergent images from the dramatic enactment of the past as portrayed in the non-actuality portions of the film. The past-actual image is combined with the present-enacted image. • The distinction between two time periods is, in this image, indicated by social knowledge ‘outside’ the text. Viewer awareness of the status of the former President and the contemporary actor are brought to the interpretation of the image by the previous textual experience of the viewer. The Connection of the Actual with the Text 304 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Gump’s imaginary encounters with actual identities involve the negation of the indexical image, in that each of the public identities are significant figures that have been responsible for shaping the ideological, political and historical environment of the United Sates of America. The media representation of the actual collides with the diegetic world of Forrest Gump, presenting the viewer with a boundary between genres that exists within the frame of an image, rather than between images. There is no mistaking the distinction between the dramatic persona of Tom Hanks and the manipulated images of the actual public identities. The fact of their cohabitation of the screen implies a boundary that is a cultural construct that is applied to the image by the viewer, but is not identifiable in the image itself. The likely viewer response to the impossible combination of manipulated actual and dramatic identities is to laugh at the absurdity of the actor addressing the president, and the president conversing with the actor (who cannot be ‘really there’). The actual and the dramatic are brought together in a single visual image, yet it is an image that contains a gulf between conceptual worlds. The actual and the dramatic are made apparent by their dissimilarity to the surrounding images, firstly, the actuality images (despite their being manipulated), contrast with the previous and ensuing fictional narrative, and, secondly, the actor contrasting with the surrounding actuality image. In the second of these disparities the actor’s presence in the actuality image is detectable only through the previous accumulated viewing experience of the viewer. It is our knowledge of Hanks as an actor, in this and other films, and the noteriety of Johnson, Nixon, Lennon and Kennedy in news, documentary and historical images, that informs the contrasting conceptions of the dramatic and the actual personae (fig. 8.3.3). In order to fully appreciate this notion, it is necessary to propose a hypothetical viewer, one who has no knowledge of Tom Hanks as an actor, nor of Kennedy, Nixon, Presley, Johnson or Lennon, one who had no social knowledge to employ in the interpretation of the images. Such a viewer, who would be exceptionally difficult to locate in the age of global media distribution, would surely have difficulty in comprehending, or even noticing the contrast of dramatic and actual identities within the image, and would not appreciate the sardonic humor of the meeting. A change in the texture, and at times of the color, of the image, and a loss of synchronization between the lips and voice would perhaps be noticeable, but the cultural construct referred to by the actual public identities, and the significance of Gump’s imaginary encounters would have no interpretive relevance. The determination of the boundary between actuality images (including news and documentary images within fictional film and television), and fictional or dramatic images (including dramatic images within non-fictional film and television), relies on a cultural construct of reality that designates extra-textual significance to images according to their perceived correlation to actuality. The image of President Johnson is adjudged to be ‘actual’ merely because the viewer has seen other images of President Johnson. The adjacent image of Tom Hanks is adjudged to be dramatic because the viewer has seen images of Tom Hanks playing the part of fictional characters in other films, or on television being interviewed in his capacity as an actual identity, rather than as an actor. The frame that surrounds the two is adjudged to be a false indication of simultaneity, as the cultural experience of the viewer reveals that the two images originate from divergent times, spaces and genres of media representation. This apperception is a utilization of cultural awareness during the interpretive ‘reading’ of the film, and a conjunction of a social knowledge of 305 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact actual events over a period of time, with the representation of the passage of time within a film or television text. Fig. 8.3.3: Forrest Gump with John Lennon on a television talk show. The cultural significance of the meeting utilizes social knowledge of historical figures and the meanings associated with them. The reading of the image cannot be said to be entirely isolated from actuality, or to completely correspond to actuality. It is the experience of the actual, and the correlation of events in the actual world with texts that purport to represent actuality, that images such as that of President Johnson are perceived as being an indicative (though not transparent), reference to actuality. The nature of the texts themselves assures that they interact with the actual world, and that some aspect of the image is a depiction that will inevitably, through interpretation, be equated with aspects of actuality. The images of public identities in Forrest Gump connect with actual events, statements, political alliances and cultural movements that are associated with each of the identities. The actual finds its way through the image, and into the awareness of the viewer as a mental-virtual, in the form of recollections and historical conceptions of culture. The manipulation of the images does not negate a viewer’s understanding of the actual, but the reference is indirect, in that the actuality is acquired through the schemata of the viewer, as the cultural construct of reality provides the cognitive material whereby actuality is connected with the image. There are, therefore, two paths by which actuality is experienced by the viewer: one is through the audio/visual image as the partial correspondence of the image with actuality, the other is the extra-textual social knowledge, which is a mental-virtual recollection of actuality, other texts, and conventions of narrativization. This interpretive process once again highlights the constructed nature of our notion of actuality. The events, words and actions that have occurred in the past are recalled as actuality, but the recollection is often that of media images that purport to represent actuality, rather than actuality itself. The mental-virtual and the technological-virtual combine in the apperception of actuality in the text. Actuality is invoked to some extent by the prior experience of viewing the image. We do not 306 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact know of President Nixon’s participation in the Watergate scandal through direct experience, but we refer to an accumulated textual construct of reality that has established this event as ‘fact’ (fig. 8.3.4). The indexical function of the image that represents the interplay of forces, actions and objects utilizes the viewer’s prior experience of textual representations in order to refer to the cultural construct of reality. Although the text may refer to actuality, the reference occurs in the viewer, who produces the connection between the cultural construct of reality and the text. Fig. 8.3.4: President Nixon recommending the Watergate hotel as suitable accommodation for Forrest Gump. The Actual/Imaginary continuum Relating these findings to the theoretical perspective as presented in the first chapter, reference in the text can be seen as an interpretive function whereby cultural constructs are ascribed to, or aligned with textual cues, and partial correspondences between prior sensory experience and the image are observed. The film depicts occurrences, actions, events, and the interplay of forces, characters or actual people, but it is the viewer who provides the linkage between the audio/visual representation and the actual world, through identification of perceptual similarities, and through the cultural construct of reality. Peirce recognizes the activity of the interpretant, classifying secondness as the index when an object, as synsign when a representation, and dicisign when interpretation (see fig. 8.3.1), thereby allowing for the divergent function of actuality, representation and interpretation. The representation, however, provides only intimation, or suggestion of interpretive strategies, but the viewer constructs the connections that comprise indexical signification in response to these cues. Although the representational expression of secondness (the synsign), performs a signifying function, it is the interpretive activity of the viewer that determines the application of the text in the final reading. The imaginary and actuality form the two extremes of a continuum – at one extreme narrative subsumes actuality (makes it invisible, or transparent, although it is present to some degree), and at the other extreme actuality subsumes narrative (renders it undetectable, by creating the illusion of actuality despite the presence of 307 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact narrative construction). Neither absolute actuality nor absolute fiction is achievable, as there is always some measure of the opposing value in the images, and in the interpretation of the images. One could be said to take priority over the other, but never to totally displace its presence in the text. It is, therefore, inappropriate to classify an entire text as being at one point in the continuum, as a fictional text, or a factual text, but a more appropriate approach to the narrativization of actuality in audio/visual texts is to identify multiple moments within a text and to define where these can be located on the narrative/actual continuum. Each moment of a text has the potential to establish reference in a particular manner, and with a unique mixture of actuality and imaginary elements (see fig. 8.3.5). Actuality Evidential Reference Indicative Reference Imitative Reference Depictive Reference Imaginary Fictional Reference Fig.8.3.5: The actual/imaginary continuum, with moments of the text occupying different referential zones. The notion of gradated referentiality outlined earlier in this chapter offers a model whereby the two fields of the imaginary and the actual can be accommodated simultaneously. Sensory resemblance and the discursive rules of formation coexist as determinants on interpretation in this model, which does not privilege one over the other but allows for multiple influences on interpretation. Codes and conventions function conjointly with perceptual correspondence of the image and the actual to shape the interpretation of images, and their referential connections with actuality and with culture. The convergence of disparate elements within a single image only serves to highlight the variability of the reference that connects images with the conditions ‘outside’ the audio/visual text. 8.4 Orders of Verisimilitude in Relation to Genre 308 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Appropriating the Image of the President in Contact The analysis of actuality and its narrativization in Forrest Gump and Contact in the forthcoming section requires recognition of the differentiation between the interpretive strategies that are implied by genres. The appearance of a rather synthetic President Clinton in Contact, for example, seems out of place in the science fiction genre, requiring that the viewer alter their frame of interpretation to allow for the presence of an actual identity within the imaginary world of the dramatic representation. The inclusion of a president, or a notable public identity, in Forrest Gump, however, is more easily acceptable, as the satirical representation of these figures is subsumed by a fictional comedy that requires no serious referential reading. The verisimilitude of these texts must be considered in a different light than that of JFK, where the image puts forward a representation that implies actual events. The verisimilitude apparent in Forrest Gump and Contact is a narrative device which gives the impression that an external actuality has entered, or ‘broken into’ the diegesis. The fictional characters interact with actual identities in both films, but the convergence of dramatic with actual within the image becomes an appropriation of the actual by the fictional narrative, rather than a statement, or claim of actuality, as is the case in JFK. The move beyond verisimilitude in the Zapruder film, and the distinction between visual resemblance of the image to the actual, and the conventions of genre, demand a reappraisal of the notion of verisimilitude. In both Schindler’s List and JFK there is an implicit claim of reality, with a distinction between the methods employed to persuade the viewer as to the actuality/text correlation. In Zemeckis’ films, however, the actuality images do not lay claim to the reality of the depicted events, but induce a convergence of interpretive strategies that remains within the milieu of fictional verisimilitude, but permeates the boundaries of fiction by intruding on the imaginary with actual content. The visual resemblance of the image to actuality is once again demonstrated to be independent of the conception of the actuality of the text, with the conventions of genre and the more general discursive rules of formation giving indication of the actual. Verisimilitude is connected with the conventions of genre, rather than the visual exactitude of the image, or the perceptual resemblance of the image to actuality. Fig. 8.4.1: The image of President Clinton appropriated from actual press conferences and inserted into the Contact narrative. 309 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Fig. 8.4.2: The President’s image is seen in television screen images … Fig. 8.4.3: and as digital manipulation of existing images in order to combine them with the actors (Tom Skerritt ), within the frame. The consideration of Contact in this chapter will be in the main concerned with the digital figure of President Clinton that is constructed as a character in the diegesis. One must question whether this manipulation of the image in the name of verisimilitude is desirable (or necessary), for this narrative, and one must also consider the nature of verisimilitude itself, and recognize the possibility of a range of verisimilitudes that articulate various connections. The verisimilitude of the sciencefiction film does not equate to that of a documentary, or a realist narrative. It is a specific verisimilitude that establishes feasibility of the diegetic world, and the technological, social, economic and cultural attributes of the imaginary setting. Prominent science-fiction films, such as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), are more concerned with establishing the ‘other worldliness’ of their diegesis, removing the setting from the familiar by displacing familiar elements in time. The familiarity that is represented in these other films is dislocated from its contemporary setting, and relocated in an unfamiliar world, removed by time and space from the world we now consider to be familiar. Such 310 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact examples can be observed in Kubrick’s use of familiar corporate trademarks, most evident in the Pan-Am ‘gravity shoes’ of the space shuttle hostess in 2001, or the reconstruction of a Los Angeles ‘China Town’ in the futuristic city of Scott’s Blade Runner. Familiarity is surrounded with the difference that technological advance and temporal distance have imposed on the diegetic world. In Contact, however, Zemeckis highlights the familiarity of the Clinton identity, dispelling the illusion of the imaginary content and attempting to construct a credible scenario by including the most familiar and identifiable public identity in the year of 1996. The actual component of the image is the digitally recreated figure of the president, and the effect of his presence on the otherwise fictional scenario is to familiarize the diegesis, bringing the actual world into the fictional world of the text. The inclusion of the Clinton image in Contact, however, provides an interpretive conundrum that lacks the satirical wit of the combined actual/dramatic images in Forrest Gump. The impossible combination of dramatic scenario and actual public identity confers a form of verisimilitude on the text, as the inclusion of the actual identity in the fictional image involves a transference of the actual president into the imaginary setting of the fictional diegesis, as opposed to the intrusion of the (fictional) actor into the actual setting in Forrest Gump. The actual identity in Contact is in foreign territory, that territory being a diegetic world that remains constant throughout the film, as opposed to the figure of Forrest Gump, who provided a constant element while the diegetic setting changes from a fictional to an actual, historical setting. The intrusion of actuality into the diegesis in Contact detracts from a viewer’s suspension of disbelief, requiring a new interpretive frame that sets the actual against the fictional, not in jest, as in Forrest Gump, but as a component of the diegetic world. The participation of the viewer in the imaginary world of the science-fiction film demands a departure from any notion of the correlation of the image and current actuality, that provides the verisimilitude associated with the documentary image. Its intrusion into the fantasy world of the science fiction genre is incongruous. President Clinton’s virtual appearance alongside the actors in a film that otherwise explores the extremes of the unknown does, however, serve the purpose of making the fictional setting more familiar, real and believable to the viewer, in effect reversing the relocation of familiarity in a foreign world, as in Kubrick’s and Scott’s films, but instead locating the diegesis within a familiar world and relocating the science fiction in the everyday. The verisimilitude apparent in Clinton’s virtual appearance, however, is that of the order of news and documentary genres discussed in previous chapters, which elicits a response that is either one of an acceptance of the actuality of the image (in which case a viewer is deceived by the image), or, alternatively, a realization that the image is the result of manipulation, in which case a viewer no longer suspends disbelief, but is actively engaged in disbelief, and the chimera of the dramatic moment is disrupted. The viewer is forced into a reflexion that diminishes the immediacy of the imaginary content of the text by inserting an icon of the actual world. Although this encourages an interpretation that places the diegesis in the realm of the feasible and the familiar, the remainder of the text seeks to integrate the unfamiliar, the improbable and the speculative into this familiarity. This is in contrast to the use of actuality images in Forrest Gump, in which the convergence is beneficial to the satirical interaction between the dramatic character historical, actual identities, and the challenge to the assumed actuality of the image 311 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact only adds to the hilarity of the narrative. One can conclude from this contrasting interpretation of actual identities appearing in fictional narrative that there are orders of verisimilitude that are applicable to specific genres, and that the convergence of these orders of verisimilitude can, in a particular genre bring about a conflict of interpretive strategies, while in another it will not. Orders of Verisimilitude Textual verisimilitude has been established in the previous two chapters to be an extra-textual connection with prior experience, and an intertextual comparison. The appearance of President Clinton in Contact employs an order of verisimilitude that would ordinarily be associated with news and documentary images, utilizing the presence of a notable (and actual), public figure. Referential verisimilitude in fictional narrative integrates actual people, places, events and fields of knowledge in order to simulate the actual world. This order of verisimilitude is reliant on Barthes cultural or referential code of narrative, which specifically references fields of existing knowledge. 18 The social knowledge associated with the images persuades the viewer as to the veracity of the text. Imitative verisimilitude emulates the actual world through its setting, mise-enscene, dialogue and narrative construction. The measure of imitative verisimilitude is not the correlation of the image with the actual, but the extent of its capacity to persuade the viewer as to the similarities between enactment and actuality. There is no expectation of the text being ‘real,’ but, rather, an evaluation as to the efficacy of the realism of the text. Does the diegetic world bear resemblance to, or reflect the qualities of the actual world? Such issues concerning the realism of the text are paramount in engaging the viewer in the suspension of disbelief. In the case of science fiction and fantasy genres, however, the necessity for textual realism is displaced by the notion of verisimilitude of potentialities, of technological (future) feasibility, and of the difference between the actual and diegetic worlds. To ‘convince’ an audience of its verisimilitude the science fiction or fantasy film must maintain cohesion in its narrative, but simultaneously reveal the cultural, social, technological and even psychic dissimilarity between the diegesis and actuality. This difference provides a temporal leap which must account for any future development, which must correspond to the viewer’s assessment of technological potentiality, as opposed to the referential and imitative orders of verisimilitude, where similarity to the (concurrent) actuality is required. In Contact Zemeckis combines referential and imitative verisimilitude with the verisimilitude of potentialities, as can be seen in the attention to technological detail, particularly in the inclusion of existing radio-telescope technology, its utilization in receiving the encoded plans for the alien-designed machine, and the feasibility of the exotic machine within the narrative context. 18 Barthes, 1974, p.20. 312 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Fig. 8.4.4: Doctor Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), explains the alien plans to government officials. The plans offer a familiar and feasible technological verisimilitude. Fig. 8.4.5: The alien designed machine requires the technological verisimilitude of the plans (above), to be a feasible contemporary construction. 313 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Fig 8.4.6: National Security Advisor Michael Kitz (James Woods), ponders the implications of the alien signal received on the array of radio telescopes. This combination of referential, imitative, and technological verisimilitudes draws the viewer into a dual interpretive frame. On one hand the familiarity of the contemporary world, the actual president (digitally reproduced), the existing SETI project, 19 and the existing form of technical drawings, and radio telescope arrays, all point towards a docu-drama style of actuality, whereas the (fictional) interdimensional space travel of alien technology, the discovery of alien radio signals, the notion of instantaneous time/space travel and existence of non-physical, extraterrestrial intelligent life, all point away from the familiar and the everyday towards a diegetic world of an unexplored and mysterious universe. However unfamiliar this universe may be, the discontinuity between present technology and the potentiality for the represented technology is a difference that is both explainable, and feasible within the narrative, given the description of the alien encounter. The difference in technologies is not necessarily that of future developments in technology (as is commonly represented in science fiction film), but the feasibility of the existence of simultaneous extra-terrestrial civilizations. Indeed, it is the contemporary milieu of the diegesis that Zemeckis seeks to emphasize through the inclusion of President Clinton and the familiar social order. The most significant order of verisimilitude is that of the verisimilitude of textual coherence, in which the text adheres to conventions that make the portrayal of events accessible to the viewer, and draw intertextual references to previous experiences of textual verisimilitude. The methods of narrativization are a persuasive form of verisimilitude, particularly in the case of formalized narrative, such as television news, where the format itself is interpreted as an indication of veracity. 20 A significant alteration of textual coherence can disrupt the interpretive strategies of the viewer, bringing about a disruption of the tenuous balance between the willingness of the viewer to, on one hand, suspend disbelief, and, on the other hand, reject a film as unfeasible. The coherence of the narrative, and the style of its representation, are a significant factor in the reception of the text, and the extent to which authenticity and veracity are attributed to the text. Barthes’ notion of the 19 The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence is an actual project that has received funding from a variety of sources, including NASA, and several private corporations. Further information on the institute can be found at the home page of SETI: http://www.seti-inst.edu/ “The SETI Institute was incorporated as a 501 (c) (3) non-profit California corporation on November 20, 1984. The purpose of the Institute, as defined at that time and still true today, is to conduct scientific research and educational projects relevant to the nature, prevalence, and distribution of life in the universe. This work includes two primary research areas: 1) SETI, and 2) Life in the Universe. Concurrent with its research focus, the Institute strives to contribute to mathematics and science education related to these fields of interest. Over its fifteen year history, the Institute has administered over $110 million of funded research.” Cited from the SETI general information and history web page, http://www.seti-inst.edu/general/seti-his.html. 20 Elliott et. al. 1986, p.269, point out that television news adheres to conventions, and “by cementing an image of the broadcasters as politically responsible these help to strengthen claims to autonomy and to forestall attempts to impose more stringent controls on their operations. This framework of constraints, however, produces a form of news which appears as a factual report of events happening in the world, rendered in a style that conceals the processes of selection and decision involved in the reports and allows the least room for comment and argumentation.” 314 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact proairetic code, utilizing the “already read, seen, done and experienced,” 21 indicates a departure from the text that is reliant on the interpretive strategies and cultural constructs that exist in the consciousness of the viewer, and that influence the way in which a viewer enters into the text. The interpretation becomes an interpolation of the text with existing experience, and the apperception of fictional realism, or nonfictional correlation of the text with the actual, is reliant on the constitution of this interpolation. The entry into and departure from the text require a nomadic subjectivity that synthesizes not only the text with the actual, but also with the multiplicity of potential subjective positions that can be occupied by the viewer. Verisimilitude of textual coherence can be effectual in relation to one subjective position, and ineffectual to another. The virtual appearance of President Clinton in Contact offers an example of this heterogeneity in verisimilitude. If the appearance of the president is considered in light of the narrative logic of the chain of causality that would require presidential intervention in the case of contact with extras-terrestrial intelligence, then the presence of the president is appropriate, and, indeed, an expectation held by the reader viewer. If, however, the viewer considers the ‘virtual president’ from the standpoint of a dedicated follower of science-fiction, who is engaged in a flight of fantasy and has no desire to integrate the reality of political alliances or actual identities into the illusory diegesis of the narrative, or have a negative opinion of the president, or of politicians in general, then the interpretive experience is altered considerably, and the viewer is adversely effected by the presence of the public identity in the narrative. The subjective position of a viewer at the time of viewing, or the multiple positions through which a viewer might nomadically traverse, bring about a complex metamorphic verisimilitude, in which the interpretation of the text can involve fluctuation between conflicting positions. From one moment to another the reading can alter according to the variant connections drawn between the text and the other texts, experiences and alliances that constitute the individual and cultural constructs that constitute the subjectivity of the viewer. The imitative and referential orders of verisimilitude have been encountered in part within the modes of reference defined earlier in this chapter, but referential modalities are concerned with the relations between the actual and the image, whereas the orders of verisimilitude are pertinent to the fictional narrative, in which actuality is a circumstance that exists external to the diegesis, rather than being an integral component, as is the case with JFK and Schindler’s List. Verisimilitude functions as a paradigm distinct from referentiality, as it defines similarities between enactment and actuality, rather than the technological-virtual distinction discussed in relation to the modes of reference. Verisimilitude in Contact and Forrest Gump is evocative of evidential referentiality, but the assertion of verisimilitude is that of similarity to the actual rather than being evidential concerning actuality. Verisimilitude in its several forms, then, is a quality of the text that is brought to bear in the interpretive activity of the viewer, and refers to actuality via the prior experience of the viewer. It elicits the acceptance of the viewer as to the authenticity of the diegesis, whereas referentiality functions in the correlation between the image 21 Barthes, op. cit., p.20. 315 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact and the actual world. The efficacy of verisimilitude is contiguous with the expectations of the viewer as to the narrative formation of the text, and the appropriateness of its referential functions in relation to its form and genre. The apperception of actuality in the image relies on the viewer’s extra-textual experience of actuality, and the interpretive strategies applied by the viewer. Evidence of this connection of actual experience with the experience of a viewer can be observed in the use of images, identities, occurrences and music in Forrest Gump that refer to a specific time period. The text is reliant on the social knowledge of a viewer in order to trace the historical development of American culture throughout the period of the life of the lead character. The engagement of the viewer with the text involves a departure from the text, and an obverse articulation of the (past) actual within the text. The narrative is not isolated from the culture of its inception, but neither does it provide an unmediated reflection of that culture. Rather, it amounts to an intensity, where the textual representation, the cultural construct of reality and the actual are united in the act of viewing and interpreting the film. None of these can be said to remain discrete territories, but are connected by flows and permeation of boundaries, as the experience of the text proceeds. Verisimilitude, then, consists of two significant functions, the first of which is the connection of the text with the actual when a minimum of conflicting values occurs, as the sensory experience of the viewer is aligned with textual data. This is the Bazinian model of the image, and stipulates the correspondences of actuality with the image. 22 Prince points to a contrasting “perceptual realism” in which the perceptual resemblance of the image to actuality is recognized as a distinct function of the cinematic image. 23 The second of these realisms occurs when comparisons, associations and interactions between the image, perceptions of actuality and other images provide an interpretive frame for the viewer in determining the ‘value’ of the text as an image that evokes a conditional ‘belief’ in the diegesis. 22 23 Bazin, 1967. Prince, op. cit., p.35. 316 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Interpretation and Interpolation: The Comparative Composite The intertextual reference of the images in Forrest Gump and Contact and the extensive inclusion of cultural ‘landmarks’ in Forrest Gump provide an example of these processes in action. The cultural references assist viewers in constructing a comparison between their conception of history and the textual representation of significant historical moments. One could describe this process as a comparative composite of the text and the actual, where the identifiable stages of cultural development provide an interpretive paradigm that displaces the requirement for the evidential qualities of referentiality. The specific location of the narrative in the stages of chronological advancement promotes a verisimilitude that combines the order of textual coherence, through reference to the form and content of other texts, with the imitative and referential orders of verisimilitude. The orders of verisimilitude, in this case, are not mutually exclusive, but several may be exhibited simultaneously by the text. The viewer is made aware of the correlation between the textual representation of actuality, particularly in the past experience of television news coverage of the major political events, and the construction of reality that results from the apperception of texts as correspondent with actuality. The manipulated images, by including significant public identities, refer indirectly to the conventions of news and documentary, and this reference highlights the formation of a constructed reality which results from accumulated experience of textual representation, that is then apprehended by the viewer as actuality. Personal experience of the actual is not consciously distinguished from the textually constructed actual, as the experience of the text converges with actual experience in the memory of the viewer. Reference to the Watergate scandal in Forrest Gump connects with other, often personal, or individual experiences that are cognitively associated with the viewer’s initial experience of the news coverage of the event. The text directs the viewer towards prior textual experience as an index of temporal advancement. The prior textual experience is, of course, satirized by the manipulation of the images, and the inclusion of Forrest Gump in the textual construction of an imaginary history. The recollection of prior textual representations of events, however, is conceived of as an actuality. The manipulated images, on one hand, produce a reflexive awareness of the significance of media texts in the construction of cultural reality, but on the other hand, in a reversal reminiscent of Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality, the previous textual experience seems more ‘real’ in contrast to the manipulated image. 24 By satirizing the television news image, the manipulated images of Forrest Gump utilize the referentiality of recollected prior (textual) experiences. 24 Baudrillard, 1988a. 317 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact Text Viewer Current viewing Comparative Composite: Apperception of Verisimilitude Experience of Other Texts Cultural Construct of Reality Actuality Experience of Actuality Figure 8.4.7: The interpolation of textual experience. The inclusion of a ‘digital president’ in Contact, however, refers to the social order in America concurrent with the production of the film. The apperception of the president as ‘actual’ is a contemporaneous intertextuality that defies the conventions of the science fiction genre, and as a result seems ‘unreal’. The utilization of a virtual image (in the absence of any physical enactment before the camera), diminishes the indexical value of the other contemporary images of Clinton, reminding the viewer of the capacity of the image to construct an identity using perceptual realism rather than indexical reality. 25 The indexicality of the image is subverted by the social knowledge that the president did not act in the film, but has been digitally constructed from existing images. The image of the president is both literally and figuratively a construct of the other images which depict his identity and social position. The experience of Clinton in the fictional text minimizes the veracity of images external to the text by demonstrating the potential for manipulation of images, and the capacity of computer generated images to present a false reality, rather than to represent an actuality. The implications of the manipulated image reach out from the text and effect the interpretation of other texts. The relations between the visual image and actuality are dependent on the interpretive strategies adopted by the viewer, which, in turn, are dependent on the experiences that comprise the cultural construct of reality. Prince, in his analysis of digital manipulation of cinematic images, confirms this notion, as he identifies the purpose of the image in suggesting interpretive frames to the viewer, and aligns this process with actual experience: 25 See Prince, op. cit., p.35. 318 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact An extensive body of evidence indicates the many ways in which film spectatorship builds on correspondences between selected features of the cinematic display and a viewer's real-world visual and social experience. These include iconic and noniconic visual and social cues which are structured into cinematic images in ways that facilitate comprehension and invite interpretation and evaluation by viewers based on the salience of represented cues or patterned deviations from them. 26 In the case of the manipulated images in Forrest Gump and Contact, the suggested interpretive frame is one whereby the represented cues themselves suggest a ‘patterned deviation’ from the experience of prior interpretations. Manipulation of the images has created visual cues that are in contravention to the conventions of genre, and which, when the extrinsic content of the image is considered, demand a revision of the interpretive assumption of the actuality of the image. The apperception of reality in the image, however reliant on textual coherence, or in reference to actuality, cannot be determined by the image alone, but requires the comparative composition of the image, the sum of recollected experience, and the interpretive strategies that have resulted from the sum of viewing experiences. The comparison of manipulation in Forrest Gump with that in Contact reveals the significance of the conventions of genre in determining the interpretation of audio/visual texts. The comedic scenario of Forrest Gump allows for a broader interpretive frame, in that elements of surprise, subversion of conventions, and misrepresentation of actuality are themselves characteristics of the genre, and are apprehended by the viewer as an innovative device. The manipulation in Contact, however, is a more challenging disruption of convention, as the notion of reality itself comes under consideration in a narrative that explores the boundaries of reality as conceived in contemporary culture. The conventions of comedy film are far more flexible than those of the science fiction genre, and the breach of the fiction/nonfiction boundary in Contact is an affront to the distinction between the diegesis of the film and the actual. Film critics reflect the irritation caused by this seemingly unwelcome permeation of boundaries in the reception of the film. Hoberman of the Village Voice states, “while all Contact’s performances seem a bit constricted, the most blatantly constructed belongs to our starstruck fearless leader”. 27 David Ansen of Newsweek observes that “Zemeckis, using his ‘Forrest Gump’ tricks, inserts actual Clinton press conferences into the story’s context, a distracting device that doesn’t feel quite kosher”. 28 The intrusion of actuality into the fantasy realm of science fiction films, and the resentment with which critics have received this manipulation of actuality, provides an indication of the influence of genre conventions over the reception of texts, and the extent to which the interpretive strategy of the viewer is disrupted by breaches of convention. As has been exemplified in both Forrest Gump and Contact, the permeation of boundaries through the convergence of actuality and dramatic enactment can be apprehended as either a positive or negative occurrence, according to the particular conventions of genre that are challenged. 26 Prince, op. cit., p.31. Hoberman, 1997. 28 Ansen, 1997. 27 319 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact The analysis of texts in the second half of the thesis has established several significant points regarding the narrativization of actuality. The conventions of genre have been identified as the most effective indication of actuality in the text. The screen image bears with it an encoded implication of the degree of actuality that is suggested by the characteristics of the image, and each genre has discursive rules of formation that form particular connections with the actual, and which evoke interpretive strategies that accompany that genre. The several modalities of documentary defined in chapter 5.2 illustrate the multifarious interpretations that can be applied to specific characteristics of image and sound in documentary film and television. The convergent texts that have been analyzed in the last three chapters, however, demand a more specific approach to the referential functions of images. Convergence of form and genre within a text calls for a new approach to the theoretical appraisal of the image. The analyses undertaken in this thesis have demonstrated the contrasting referential functions of the image, of verisimilitude in fictional narrative, and the partial correspondence with actuality in the documentary image. The so-called ‘hybrid’ texts, in which the conventions of multiple genres are combined, require an awareness of the gradation of the convergence of genre, and the implications of the permeation of boundaries within texts. The theorist is left with the choice of accepting the postmodern position of the detached image, which bears no relation to actuality, and applying this notion to all images, or to consider the gradation of the relations between actuality and the image. A number of relations have been identified, from the fictional realism that is apprehended as verisimilitude, to the evidential reference of documentary, and the several intermediate stages that lie between the two. Also the perceptual realism of the image, as opposed to the diminished resemblance observable in ‘grainy’ and ‘shaky,’ or black and white images influences the interpretation of the text. The measure of actuality in the text has been shown to be predominantly the result of the conventions of genre rather than the perceptual realism of the images, but the sensory correspondence between the image and actuality is inclusive in the viewer’s overall conception of the actuality/image relations. The conventions of fictional narrative locate actuality outside the text, with incidental reference only whereas the conventions of the documentary genre encourage an interpretation that locates actuality within the text, using the image as evidential reference. The texts that have been analyzed demonstrate the inadequacy of the categorization of an entire text according to this system of classification, which is capable only of placing actuality within or outside the text, but does not account for gradation of the apperception of actuality in the image, proportional relations of the conventions of genre as they constitute a text, and the cultural constructs by which such conventions are ascertained and applied by the viewer. The analyses in this thesis have identified several areas that require a reconsideration of current film theory, and a reappraisal of the methodology of film analysis. The importance of conceiving of moments within the text, and the relations between moments, rather than a totalizing categorization of whole texts, is significant in coming to terms with the convergence of form and genre that is increasingly apparent in film and television texts. The relations between the text and actuality have important ramifications for the fields of film and television research, as the role of the screen image in society 320 Convergence of Actuality with Imaginary Content in Forrest Gump and Contact demands both a healthy misgiving as to the ‘absolute truth’ of the image, and a requirement for the image as an expanding form of communication and artistic expression. The relations of the image to the actual are paramount in the cultural construct of reality, and in the everyday functions of society, in that the representation of actuality also alters the shape of actuality. A clearer understanding of the codes and conventions of the image, and of the perceptual illusions of reality inherent in the media is required, for, as Silverstone observes, the interpretation of texts according to one code can be appropriate, but when apprehended according to another code can be problematic: …The television text manifests a concern both within its structure and within its content with the need to present reality (and this is equally true of dramatic and fictional as it is of factual programming) and that this concern is a product both of the particular character of the medium and of the various narrative strategies, in argument, and above all in the naturalization of the text as a whole, that define a primary dimension of its ordering. The demands of verisimilitude, much more in evidence as a conscious strategy in the production of a fictional text, become both more problematic and more insidious in the presentation of a documentary text, which by its very existence and label masks the artifices involved. 29 The methods of analysis offered in this thesis suggest a pluralism that accounts for deviations from, and convergence of codes and conventions. The relations between the text and actuality cannot be arrived at through the assumption that the image is of a particular genre, but requires evaluation as to the multiple constituent parts that comprise the text, and the multifarious connections with actuality that are created by moments within the text. 29 Silverstone, 1988, p.33. 321 Conclusion CONCLUSION The progress toward the objectives of this thesis has been through a combination of theoretical discussion and critical analysis. The narrativization of actuality has been analyzed in its form and genre, with the cultural, individual and actual influences on the text and on interpretive strategies being taken into consideration. The convergence of form and genre, observed in the permeability of intervening boundaries, has been demonstrated with textual examples. There is also much to be said about the multiple theories that have been implemented during the course of the thesis. The multiperspectival approach has allowed for flexibility of analytical procedure, and enabled a breadth of perspective that would otherwise not have been possible. The conclusion will recapitulate the more significant findings of the research, and evaluate the pertinence of the methodology to the field of media analysis. The research process and the attendant unfolding of new awareness and appreciation of theoretical perspectives over the course of the composition of the thesis will be discussed in relation to the chronological development of a position regarding the narrativization of actuality. The possibilities of new directions for research, and the feasibility of applying the methodology utilized in this thesis in future analyses will also be considered. The Significance of the Research Understanding the relations between actuality and the audio/visual text have proven to be the most significant challenge of the thesis, with the conflict of structuralism and post-structuralism complicating the analysis of the articulation of actuality in the text. The multiperspectival approach applied to this problem has highlighted the importance of the issue, with the development from theories of signification, as posited by Peirce, to Saussurian structuralism, and the semiology of Barthes, on through the reader-response theory of Iser, toward the post-structuralism of Foucault, and of film theorists such as Bordwell, and Carroll, and the cultural perspective of Hall and Morley. At the apex of this theoretical assemblage, however, Deleuze and Guattari provide a model that allows for flexibility and multiperspectival synthesis. The actual, according to their perspective, need not be considered as a disconnected milieu, but, rather, as a component of a complex weaving that combines actuality, culture and the individual on a plane of consistency. The tension between structuralism and post-structuralism concerning the site of the construction of a text, as a reader-response or as a textual phenomenon, is deflected by the notion of the rhizome multiplicity. Arguments that insist on an absolutist position concerning the site of meaning are set aside by the notion of assemblage, where stratification is no limitation to an assemblage that draws from multiple strata, in this case from actuality, from culture, and from the individual. The division between one stratum and another is permeated by the 322 Conclusion assemblage, which operates across a range of strata. The actual, the text and the viewer are participants in a monism that underlies divisions and boundaries. The major contribution of this thesis concerning the connectivity of the actual, the text and the viewer, lies in the demonstration that the delineation of actuality from the imaginary is resultant of the cultural construct of reality, and its conjunction with discursive rules of formation. The conventions of discourse, and particularly the characteristic devices of particular genre, imply specific relations with actuality, and the image is conventionally interpreted according to these textual inferences. The image, however, is also shown to be affected by actuality, in that a measure of correlation with the actual is reflected in the text, partly through the requirements of verisimilitude, which engages the cultural construct in a comparative composite of experience, cultural convention and sensory semblance. The Baudrillardian notion of simulacra, then, is superseded by the notion of partial correspondence, which does not presuppose an absolute separation of the image and actuality. The notion of partial correspondence enables the text to proportionally indicate the actual to the viewer, without being isolated as a disconnected simulation. The image does not become a substitute for reality, but the referentiality of the image contributes to a cultural construct of reality that consists of codification of the actual. The second notable finding of this research is that the Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of rhizome has been confirmed as a successful means of modeling the multiple facets of audio/visual narrative. This model cannot, however, be considered in isolation from the arboreal model, as the two are engaged in continual interaction and transferal. The text as rhizome can also interact with the arboreal characteristics of the text. Stratification, which operates as an arboreal delineation, functions as an overcoding of the plane of consistency, and are intersected by machinic assemblages or collective assemblages of enunciation, which are the rhizomic multiplicities that overlap divisions of stratification. Audio/visual texts are ostensibly of a genre, or originating from a particular form of media, and according to such delineation are subjected to a stratified overcoding. The rhizomic text, however, reveals the breaksflows that occur between strata and texts, and the lines of flight that deterritorialize, transforming a multiplicity from one formation to another. The molecular flow is in a continual state of tension between deterritorialization and the social pressure toward a reterritorialization that prevents the line of flight. Multiplicities consisting of groupings of texts, whether defined by genre or form, are continually subjected to these opposing forces, and the resulting changes in the multiplicity are observable as ‘hybrid’ forms of media that permeate or span existing boundaries, and the resultant pressure to reterritorialize the newly formed multiplicity by generating a newly defined genre grouping. The permeation of genre boundaries is indicative of a rhizomic ‘offshoot’ from the codified boundaries of conventional genre groupings, and results in the formation of a new multiplicity, in this case being reterritorialized as new ‘sub-genres’ of drama-documentary, or documentary-drama. 1 The intention of this thesis, however, has been to define the processes of transformation beyond 1 See Corner, 1996, p.34 for a distinction between drama-documentary and documentary-drama, in which Corner supports the position of shifting boundaries, but maintains a definite boundary between the two forms of hybrid text. 323 Conclusion genre boundaries, which are considered permeable, rather than to create new delineation between groups. The rhizome model encourages the awareness of outside influences on both the text and the reader/viewer. Despite the Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of the delimiting, overcoding influence of the molar representation, the representation in the form of a film or television program, is also engaged in molecular flows. The text as rhizome forms connections with the outside, and the viewer, who also forms connections while interacting with the text, can transform the overcoded representation into a molecular flow (or to compare the Deleuzo-Guattarian model with Hall’s cultural theory), an oppositional reading of that text. 2 The resulting molecular flows that operate in the “realm of beliefs and desires,” 3 and defy all distinction between the social and the individual, illustrate the tension between the arboreal and rhizomic models that is continually at work in representations, and the interpretive strategies that are applied to the text. Post-Postmodernism Several assumptions concerning postmodern theories have been revealed during the process of researching the boundaries between genres, and between the narrative and actuality. Crotty correctly observes that the most unique aspect of postmodern theories lies in the abolition of boundaries, and the notion of the blurring of any delineation between territories: What the postmodernist spirit has brought into play is primarily an overpowering loss of totalising distinctions and a consequent sense of fragmentation. The boundary between elite and popular culture, between art and life is no more. 4 The analysis of the selected texts, however, has demonstrated the existence of several specific relations that can be identified as functioning between territories. The analysis of Schindler’s List reveals a convergence of classical Hollywood and documentary film conventions that imply actuality, and occupy the text in distinct portions, enabling the viewer to experience an easy transition between interpretive frames. The text, however powerful the verisimilitude of the images may be, remains within the field of dramatic reenactment, and its referentiality always consists of a depiction of the cultural construct of a historical event. The analysis of JFK however, discloses a more confronting intrusion of actuality into the text, and of rapid transitions between genre conventions that destabilize the interpretive frame. Genre boundaries remain intact, but are recontextualized by continuous and repetitious leaps between several conventions. The boundaries are in this case intact, but the actual and the narrative are rendered barely distinguishable by the synthesis of images. The most flagrant breach of boundaries occurs within the images of Forrest Gump, when the actuality image and the dramatic concurrently inhabit the frame. The relation established by such images adequately expresses the notion of partial correspondence, whereby the actuality image is demonstrated to be of the technological-virtual order by the intrusion of the imaginary character into the 2 Hall, 1980, p. 138. Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.219. 4 Crotty, 1998, pp.212-213. 3 324 Conclusion actuality image. Boundaries are challenged by such manipulation, but do not entirely dissolve, as the delineation between the enacted and the actual are identifiable. The permeation of boundaries is most puissant in these images, but the convergence of the genres is evident, and the conventions are distinctly assembled from two divergent modes of reference. The process of researching boundaries has brought about a change in perspective, from a postmodern assumption of blurred boundaries, to the realization that boundaries remain intact as long as the social conventions of boundaries are intact. It is the cultural construct of genres, and of actuality as opposed to the imaginary, that defines the interpretation of representations. Sensory resemblance of the image to actuality may provide a measure of perceptual realism, but the presupposition as to the ontological status of the image is dependent on the viewer as an experienced ‘reader’ of texts. Boundaries can be opposed, subverted or challenged, but while they continue to be designated and named by a culture, they thereby exist for that culture. The conception of ‘documentary film’ ensures the assumption of reality that accompanies the interpretation of documentary film. Boundaries are not blurred, but are an arbitrary construct of a culture, and as such, are subject to revision, rejection, alteration or reinforcement according to the inclination of the culture. The postmodern subversion of boundaries is a response to conventionality rather than to boundaries, and an expression of the need for flexibility and transformation rather than rigidity and intransigence. When boundaries are redefined as the outer limits of rhizomic multiplicities, the requirement for subversion of boundaries will cease, and new fields of revolutionary thought will be unveiled. It remains to be seen whether the subversion of boundaries will result in newly defined territories with rigidified boundaries, or whether a rhizomic state can be maintained in contrast to the arboreal delineation that has previously dominated film and television convention. The chronological development of a theoretical position has also seen a transformation in the understanding of Deleuze and Guattari, from the initial misconception that the rhizome model, nomadism, and deterritorialization are independent of their respective opposites: the arboreal model, the state apparatus, and territorialism. The notions of the line of flight, of deterritorialization, and of rhizome are reliant on a comparative interaction with conventional (molar) models. It has been a finding of major significance in this research that boundaries (territorialization), and the breaching of boundaries (deterritorialization), are reciprocally interdependent. The development of a more complex appreciation of the Deleuzo-Guattarian position has brought about a reconsideration of the relations between conventional and revolutionary thought. Despite their claims to the contrary, there is a manifest dualism in the theories of Deleuze and Guattari. On one hand, they claim “no axiological dualism between good and bad”, 5 and on the other they plainly encourage a dualistic preference for one model over the other: 5 Deleuze and Guattari, op. cit., p.20. 325 Conclusion Make rhizomes, not roots, never plant. Don’t sow, grow offshoots! Don’t be one or multiple, be multiplicities. Run lines, never plot a point! Speed turns the point into a line! Be quick, even when standing still! 6 The preference for one model, and aversion to the other, amounts to a dualism in their theory that is plainly evident in such statements. Their distaste for structure and hierarchy contrasts with a preference for multiplicity. Their insistence on a contrast between the two models contradicts the previous claims of the interdependency of the theories, in which they state that “there are knots of arborescence in rhizomes, and rhizomic offshoots in roots”. 7 It is the conclusion of this research in relation to the Deleuzo-Guattarian position that in order to function, deterritorialization first requires territorial boundaries from which to escape. Nomadism is a freedom to move across the surface of the earth without boundaries, and to forbear from constructing boundaries. A nomadic approach calls for the active disintegration of boundaries, for an act of revolutionary thought that permeates boundaries and passes through them as if they did not exist. Deterritorialization, however, cannot be considered to be isolated from, or unrelated to reterritorialization: An organism that is deterritorialized in relation to the exterior necessarily reterritorializes on its interior mileus. … One travels by intensity; displacements and spatial figures depend on intensive thresholds of nomadic deterritorialization (and thus on differential relations) that simultaneously define complementary, sedentary reterritorializations. … Deterritorialization on a stratum always occurs in relation to a complementary reterritorialization. 8 The nomad reterritorializes in an interior alteration, resulting from a movement of the external, which is deterritorialized. The question to be addressed here is the status of nomadism in a world where boundaries are entrenched, where segmentarity delimits the plane of consistency, and where the arboreal model is the dominant paradigm. Although nomadic movements occur, they cannot be considered in isolation from the boundaries that inhibit and disallow them. Nomadism in contemporary cultures of European or American origin entails a struggle against the rigid boundaries that have been constructed by conventions of culture and by the state apparatus. The boundaries of textual genre and form are inclusive in this argument. A ‘docudrama’ is named according to the genre groupings from which it originates, and has not, as yet, absolutely escaped the delimiting restrictions that define those groupings. A truly ‘nomadic text’ can, and should not be defined in terms of genre, and a truly nomadic reading of the text will disregard any conventions that delimit or direct interpretation. The challenge to conventional genre boundaries in textual construction should not necessarily inspire the institution of a new genre, but, rather, the permeability of genre boundaries should themselves be observed through the text, as is especially applicable in Forrest Gump and JFK. The effect of these texts is to encourage the viewer to consider the relations between the actual and the 6 ibid., p.24. ibid., p.20. 8 ibid., p.54. 7 326 Conclusion representation, and the acculturation of images that denote specific identity or location, and therefore cause connections between the actual, the cultural and the individual to be forged across culturally constructed boundaries. The re-admittance of the actual into the image, and the reconnection of the individual with the actual via the image, restores to the audio/visual text an authenticity that utilizes reference and denotation, but does not propose a false authenticity in which the representation purportedly corresponds entirely with the actuality. By extending the notion of ‘reality’ to encompass the cultural, the actual and the individual, the reality of the text has not been reinstated unreservedly and completely, but in conjunction with the representational status of the text. Reality is a complex notion that functions across multiple fields and intersects with several strata of textual, actual, psychic and cultural domains, and can be included in the text without excluding the representational functions that express cultural strategies and utilize conventions of narrativization. Actuality and the cultural construct of reality are not mutually exclusive, but coexist as components of the text, and as connections from the text to the ‘outside’ world. A narrative can be rhizomic, or arboreal, or it can simultaneously exhibit both qualities, but connections with the culture, and with actuality, are universally evident in the text. Although the arboreal text will obfuscate such connections, and the rhizomic text will proliferate in connections, they are, nevertheless, existent in both forms. Beyond the Text in Many Directions The movement of theoretical awareness away from a conflation of reality with the image, to the post-structural consciousness of the representation of reality achieved the purpose of overcoming the naivety of the prior position, but has replaced that naivety with a prohibitive and proscriptive delineation which assumes a complete disconnection of the image from actuality. 9 It has been amongst the more significant outcomes of this thesis to define and demonstrate the connections between actuality and the image, and to amend the postmodern theoretical trend that has posited the presupposed isolation of representation from actuality. The rhizome model does allow for the presence of multiple connections beyond the boundaries of the text, with connections to actuality and cultural constructs of reality coexisting within the text, and for the text, culture and viewer to exist on a plane of consistency. The audio/visual representation is, therefore, not to be caught up in a conflation of representation with actuality, but neither is it to be entirely divorced from the actual. Between these two absolutes there is a realm of partial constituents that form connections beyond boundaries, and that form a heterogeneous multiplicity, rather than a homogeneous unity. A measure of actuality can be present in the text without the text being identical with that actuality. According to this model the processes of narrativization are engaged in a reciprocal supposition with actuality in the text, and the mediation of the text functions as a filter through which the actual can be perceived, and which varies in its opacity, but which does not entirely exclude the actual from the representation. 9 The contrasting theories are best represented by Bazin’s position of absolute truth in the film image (1967), and Baudrillard’s simulacra (1988a), in which the image is indiscernible from the reality. Baudrillard’s position assumes that the distinction between images and reality should be drawn, in that we should be able to “isolate the real,” (p.139). 327 Conclusion Narrativization does not preclude actuality from the text, but neither is it transparent. Actuality is a presence in the text, and representation involves culturally determined constructions of actuality. Cultural ‘tracings’ of actuality function as narrativization in the construction of texts, and as interpretive strategies for the viewer. Cultural reality is, within the context of the above analogy, the filter which distorts or modifies the textual view of the actual, and applies a template, or tracing to the actual. The resultant textual connection with the actual is never a complete correlation between actuality and representation, but rather, the representational form is combined with the actual within the frame of the audio/visual text. The text, the actual, the individual and the cultural are extracted onto a plane of consistency, and portions of each form flow into the other milieus. The notion of verisimilitude is profoundly altered when the text is considered in this manner. The similitude observable in the text becomes a continuum with the actual, rather than an imitation, and cultural reality converges with the actual through the text, combining the interplay of forces that shape the text into a rhizome that shoots out on all sides and forms connections with the ‘outside’. Foucault’s notion of exteriority, 10 emphasizes the external connections of the text, in the rules and conditions of existence for discourse, where the socio-cultural conditions of the text are reflected by the form of the discourse. The text is molded by the outside because it is connected with the outside; there is no impermeable delineation between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of a film or television text, but permeable boundaries that permit flows to pass in many directions and enable the convergence of discourse and actuality. Rather than reflection, or similitude, the text in fact offers a partial experience of actuality and the cultural conditions of its existence. Audio/visual texts are not an isolated, relativistic representation of a disunited ‘reality,’ but are, rather, a presentation of a heterogeneous aggregation of actual, cultural and individual realities, that are assimilated with the codes of narrativization. The audio/visual text and its interpretation are comprised of a convergence of actuality and the cultural construct of reality – part actuality, part narrativization of the text, part interpretive strategies of the viewer (derived from the culture), and part individual response (evident in desire and belief). The ramifications of this model, in particular for documentary, news and ‘hybrid’ forms, is to liberate the text from the detached isolation of representation from actuality, and reinstate it as a participatory element of the cultural and actual milieus. The reality of the text is, by all means, a mediated restatement of the actual, providing a more divergent intellection of events than the direct physical experience of unmediated perception. It combines interpretive cultural values with a segmented, selected series of virtual audio/visual samples of the actual. It pre-empts and frames the interpretive strategies of the viewer, thereby engaging them in a cultural dialogue integral to the notion of negotiated and oppositional readings. The audio/visual text becomes an intersection of lines of connection, not a static point of representation, and draws together a range of diverse elements that are activated before, during and after the viewing experience. The documentarist, or fictional film-maker, is not a despot who imposes interpretive strategies on the viewer, but, rather, engages with a rhizome that produces multiple connections. The styles and procedures of 10 Foucault, 1972. 328 Conclusion documentary narrativization are an inherited cultural strategy, which has as one of its objectives the ability to affect actuality by completing the cycle of the text, so that the text ‘feeds back’ into actuality and the cultural construct of reality, bringing about some alteration in the actual state of affairs or the cultural conception of events or circumstances. The rhizome model lends itself to a socio-political implementation of audio/visual texts, where the text is interactive with people and events, and brings about transformations of actuality. The rhizomic socio-political is, however, not a distinct territory, but flows into other areas: educational, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and also into the realm of desire, where the viewer is motivated by pure affect. The narrativization of actuality produces a conjunction of the actual with the cultural. The Deleuzo-Guattarian rhizomic and arboreal models highlight the contrast which is encountered in the thesis, that of the totalizing text, the Barthesian readerly, Eco’s closed text, and Hall’s notion of preferred readings (that correspond with the arboreal model), with the writerly, the open text, the negotiated and oppositional readings that exhibit rhizomic features. The revolutionary text, at least as defined in this postmodern era, is the text which expresses and enables heterogeneity, whereas the conventional, classical text delimits interpretation and imposes interpretive homogeneity. The implementation of classical forms of narrativization is evident in the traditional news and documentary forms, and Hollywood narrative conventions. Such forms are reflective of the genre groupings that have, in turn, formed the conventions of narrative by which they are modeled. Hybrid forms of film and television that exhibit convergence of form and genre combine several classical and non-classical forms, recontextualizing the classical conventions and defying territorial delimitation. The notion of a singular ‘narrativization’ becomes, instead, a multiplicity comprised of ‘narrativizations’. The hybrid text itself embarks on a line of flight that passes through genre boundaries and travels along lines of connection. The rhizomic text, therefore, is openly comprised of many parts and is in contrariety to structural unity. There is, however, a vast spectrum of possibilities that combine these two polarities. Schindler’s List takes on the appearance of classicism, but contains multiple narrative strategies that are subtly juxtaposed in a text that appears uniform, but on closer examination defies classical narrative form, both visually and structurally. In contrast JFK is obtrusive in its sharp leaps from one genre convention to another, yet its radical structure obscures an arboreal tendency to inhibit interpretive possibilities, while simultaneously functioning rhizomically outside the text in its comparative and political connections. Forrest Gump challenges the notion of actuality in the image, but in doing so unites the actual with the dramatic image in a provocative virtual conjunction of past and present. The connections between the actual and the individual are dealt with as a cognitive function by Bordwell in the formation of schemata – cultural strategies revealed in connections of thought that reproduce tracings of cultural convention. The structure of the psyche as an ordered, schematic linearity constrasts with Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of heterogeneity and schizoanalysis. Bordwell’s poststructuralist reading of cinema accounts for the molar, representational and arboreal paradigm more adequately than it does the intricate molecular flows of the rhizomic model. This formulaic approach to cinema runs into difficulty when the heterogeneity of the audience is considered. Bordwell takes viewer response into 329 Conclusion consideration, particularly in the distinction between fabula and syuzhet, where the narrative that is constructed by the viewer (fabula), is contrasted with the systems employed in the narrativization (syuzhet), and the technical manipulation of style. 11 The variability of viewers, and the molecular multiplicities that are connected with the text, however, do not always comply to schematic or diagrammatic overcoding. Molecular flows are created where codified systems of narrativization are experienced by the viewer and transmuted in the interpretation to fit needs, desires and beliefs, and the text becomes malleable as it connects with the heterogeneous world of the viewer. Acquiring Multiperspectivalism Adopting a multiperspectival approach has proven to be a challenging task, most notably in the application of a universe of theoretical approaches to a finite collection of texts. Over the course of the three years of research and writing that comprised the composition of this thesis there has been a continual expansion of the theoretical horizon. Areas that at first did not appear to have relevance to the topic offered insights into specific areas, and were therefore included in order to define or elucidate particular points. Apart from a general expansion of theoretical awareness, however, there has been a corresponding focalization of multiple theories on the topic and the selected texts. The many theories that have been encountered in the course of this research have contributed to a variety of magnitudes, some, such as Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari, having a profound impact on the content, and others providing comparison, analogy or alternative rationalization. The many theoretical contributions, however, have been utilized in order to provide a more complete overview of the narrativization of actuality, and the various approaches that have been applied to the issue have enabled a comprehensive overview that takes historical, as well as current theoretical positions into consideration. As a researcher, my position has varied considerably over the course of time, from an initial postmodern orthodoxy, adhering to the Deleuzo-Guattarian, and Baudrillardian perspectives, and assuming that these theoretical standpoints were correct to the exclusion of all others. The absolutist position, however, was quickly revealed to be inappropriate to the research of a topic that has been the subject of several analytical attempts to define the relations of the image to actuality, most notably the Barthesian semiotic venture, and the phenomenology of early French film theory, from Bazin, and Meleau-Ponty. There has been a gradual awakening to the fact that specific theories are inseparable from their antecedents, and that, particularly in the case of Deleuze and Guattari, closer examination of the theories can reveal profundity, and relations with other theories that go beyond any initial impression that is given by a brief summarization of the position. Multiperspectivalism has proved to offer a liberation from the restrictions of deterministically aligning ones self with a single position, but has also been beneficial in the opportunity to apply numerous theories to the thesis. The central organizing principle of this thesis has been to identify and explicate the connections and similarities between theories, and to attribute to such similarities greater significance than the contradictions which also occur between theories. The 11 Bordwell, 1985, p.49. The notion of fabula and syuzhet originated with Tomashevsky, 1965, but was specifically applied to cinema by Bordwell. 330 Conclusion structural approach of Peirce or Levi-Strauss may not concur with a DeleuzoGuattarian position, but the conjunction of theories provides a spectrum of opinions, revealing a continuum of logical reason as theoretical debates bring about an evolution of epistemology, and provide a range of possible positions applicable to specific situations. Deleuze has no hesitation in using Peirce in Cinema 1 and Cinema 2, and does not discard the theoretical notions that he finds useful because other areas of Peirce’s work contradict Deleuze’s own theories. He identifies the theoretical variance, and then proceeds to utilize compatible notions to build on Peirce’s system of semiotic signification. 12 The comparable themes of the theories are, in this case, considered more consequential than the fundamental differences between structuralist semiotics and postmodernism. The multiperspectivalism practiced in this thesis allows for conjunctions between theories, but does not insist on the abandonment of a theoretical thesis. Deleuze and Guattari provide a central position, from which the thesis has expanded into several areas, but to which it returns. Each chapter has embarked on a venture outward from this axis, and explored the predominant theories relevant to a text or particular field of research, and has related these theories back to a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective. In hindsight, the theoretical approach of this thesis has been a qualified multiperspectivalism, with particular emphasis on theoretical conjunction as opposed to delineation between theories. Future Approaches to Classificatory Boundaries Conventional delineation between a number of textual classifications has been revealed as inadequate by the analyses in the thesis. The distinction between fiction and non-fiction has been demonstrated to be a simplistic reduction of the complex convergence of actuality, genre convention, the cultural construct of reality, and the individual disposition of the viewer. Schindler’s List consists of a conjunction of elements that defies definition in terms of its standing as a fictional or non-fictional text. The intricate relations between the film, historical actuality, and cultural constructs, are an area that requires further research, not for the purpose of defining and classifying additional genres, such as documentary-drama, drama-documentary or mock-documentary, but, rather, to analyze the functions of textual characteristics and interpretive strategies. The imposition of further boundaries, groupings and delineation according to texts as whole units does not suffice in recognizing and accounting for the segmentation of texts in which genre conventions and narrative form can be contrasted within a single text as well as intertextually. Fiction and nonfiction can coexist within a text, and, indeed, can converge within an image, as is evident in the analysis of Forrest Gump and Contact. The referential functions of audio/visual texts are polymorphous according to the cultural constructs that are applied to their interpretation, and it is this arena of research that requires investigation so as to reach an understanding of the way in which a culture defines itself and interprets its own artifacts. Heterogeneity is not a reason to abandon any attempt to conceive of the complexity of text, culture, viewer and actuality, but should be considered a recognition of the fact that these elements are conjoined in a network of connections 12 Deleuze, 1989, p.31. 331 Conclusion that cannot be reduced to the notion of territories and boundaries. The DeleuzoGuattarian approach provides a series of models that account for the multiple concepts that must be taken into consideration when attempting an analysis of cultural artifacts and their significance. The viewer is not a disconnected ‘island’ of subjectivity, but subjectivity is formed in conjunction with the actualities, conventions, alliances and experiences. The interconnection of subjectivity with the collective is at the nucleus of this research. The individual is never precisely an individual, but sees and interprets the world, texts, and all sensory data according to the experience of culture, and the participation in a cultural group. Having traced the ‘lines of flight’ pertinent to several texts in this thesis, it is worth noting that this approach has opened up a universe of possibilities for furthering this analytic framework. The recognition of heterogeneity, and the rhizome model, enables seemingly endless conceivable paths for tracing the interconnections of texts with the actual and cultural milieus. The notion of continuum provides the means for a reevaluation of the referential functions of the audio/visual text, and reestablishes the connections between the text and the world it describes, be it imaginary or actual. When apprehended in this light, JFK can be seen to be a work of genius that has forged the connections between actuality, social hierarchies and fictional narrative in an audacious, experimental and revolutionary departure from the accepted boundaries of the time. Stone presents a particular perspective on the history of the Kennedy assassination, but his methodology in doing so has served a twofold purpose. Firstly, in highlighting the power of the conventions of genre to induce particular interpretive frames, and the significance of the visual form of the image that directs the viewer toward a specific mode of reference. Secondly, the distinction between the perceptual realism of the transparent, high-resolution film image as opposed to the conspicuous textures of super 8 film and black and white video and television imagesA significant findings of this research is that a reduction in perceptual resemblance to actuality initiates an interpretive frame that attributes the image with a greater measure of correspondence to actuality. The less transparent the image, the more likely it is to be received as actuality, whereas the highly produced transparency of Hollywood cinematic images suggests diegesis, rather than an actuality. The detectable presence of mediation in a ‘raw’ documentary image implies the absence of the narrative construction of the text, whereas in comparison, the seamless continuity and smooth camera movements of the fictional narrative give the impression of artifice by means of an apparent exnomination of the mediation of the image. The dual perspicacity of actuality in the image – the sensory illusion of perceptual realism, and the acculturated responses evoked by the conventions of genre – provoke a reconsideration of the ontological significance of images. Neither indicates absolute correspondence (as there can never be an absolute correspondence of actuality and the image), but the notion of gradations of actuality in the image supersedes a view that posits the duality of either absolute correspondence or disconnected relativism. By defining the modalities of actuality in the text this thesis has suggested an outline for future film and television criticism in answer to the call for a change in 332 Conclusion theoretical position from Prince. 13 His proposition is that the changes in film technology and computer generated images demands a reappraisal of a dualistic and absolutist theoretical standpoint in regards to the film image. The current ‘explosion’ of digital technology has significantly altered the presuppositions that influence the interpretation of images, as the technology required to manipulate images is more freely accessible at the present time than has been the case throughout the history of film and television production. The dividing of the general term ‘virtual’ into its several constituent stages in chapter 3.3 has allowed for a more specific approach to the interpretation of actuality in the image by delineation between the three fields of virtualization. The apperception of actuality in the image has been demonstrated to work on three levels: the mental, the technological and the narrative, and this distinction enables a more precise comprehension of the relations between the image and actuality. Hybrid Forms and Emerging Interpretive Strategies The development of new textual forms, as is evident in JFK and Forrest Gump, brings about a corresponding alteration in interpretive strategies. The cultural construct by which actuality is apprehended in the text responds to changes in narrative form and content, modifying the assumptions that accompany conventions of representation. The manipulation of genre conventions apparent in JFK would be unlikely to cause the equivalent uproar from journalists if it were released in the current climate, as these narrative devices have become more commonplace and acceptable. A film can no longer be assumed to consist of a particular genre in its entirety, as several hybrid forms have emerged over the past decade. The texts which have been selected for analysis in this thesis stand as exemplars in their fields, and have paved the way for several antecedents. The use of actual locations to enhance authenticity in Schindler’s List has been repeated in the original battle sites in Braveheart (1995) and the use of the Globe Theatre in Shakespeare in Love (1998) itself a reconstruction of a historical architectural icon, offering in a highly credible reenactment of Elizabethan London. The use of documentary techniques in a dramatic enactment, as evident in Schindler’s List and JFK, has also been employed in The Blair Witch Project (1999), and the utilization of news footage and archival film is noticeably present in Apollo 13 (1995). The virtual illusions of Zemeckis in Forrest Gump and Contact could conceivably have influenced the integration of the image with virtual reality in Run Lola Run (1999) however the use of significant public identities has not to my knowledge reappeared since Contact, perhaps due to its dubious ethical standing, and politically contentious circumstances. With such a significant body of texts that permeate the boundary between documentary and fiction, the interpretation of ‘hybrid’ texts will never be the same for viewers who have been affected by the alteration that these texts have brought about in the cultural construct of reality. Once the boundaries between genres have been permeated, the presuppositions that are a fundamental component of interpretive strategies concerning the relations between actuality and the image are reshaped. The emergence of new texts, which adhere to the experimental precedents of JFK or Forrest Gump could conceivably result in a new orthodoxy, in which the use of ‘cross-genre’ conventions becomes a standard feature of a new genre of 13 Prince, 1996, p.34. 333 Conclusion hybrid texts. Such formations of new multiplicities is consistent with the ‘offshoots’ of rhizome theory, and also with early genre theory, as Cook notes that “difference between genres occurs in the particular discourses invoked, the particularity of emphasis on and combination of elements that are shared with other genres”. 14 The priority of new research directions should, however, be to account for the relations between actual, the cultural construct of reality, and the text with regard to the interpretive strategies that continually transform in response to alterations in genre conventions. A theoretical approach that accounts for the changing characteristics of boundaries, and the implications of these changes, is a superior analytical tool when compared to the delineation of new boundaries and classifications. The model outlined in this thesis emphasizes the connections that permeate boundaries and establish relations between divergent fields, ahead of the delineation of generic groups that are, after all, subject to continual transformation. Objectives for Future Research The future directions suggested by this research concern the relations between actuality and the virtual reality that is currently being refined as an art form that may eventually rival film and television. As sensory correspondence is enhanced by developments in the technological-virtual field, corresponding alterations of the narrative-virtual and the narrative-actual are to be expected, and the creation of interactive narrative forms is a potential extension of present film and television media. The investigation and analysis of current experiments in this field is a significant research priority, as the technological advances that have enabled the manipulation of images, as is evident in Forrest Gump and Contact, are applied to the field of interactive virtual reality. The ability for a viewer to become a participant in a narrative scenario, and to interact with ‘virtual characters’ would further enhance the notion of verisimilitude and perceptual correspondence. The integration of actuality into such a technology is a potential field for further research, and could profoundly alter present notions of narrative. The move towards computer generated virtual reality is raising the issue of sensory correspondence afresh, and emerging technologies could challenge the boundaries of sensory perception as did the earliest experiences of cinema. It is likely that changes in narrative form will go largely unnoticed in the shadow of a new technological and perceptual phenomenon, but it is important that the potential for an even more persuasive rendition of actuality that the current two-dimensional form does not eclipse the codification that will accompany such an advance. The recent exploration of virtual reality in cinematic form, as seen in The Matrix (1999) offers an early indication as to the possibilities of a new conception of the narrativevirtual/narrative-actual duality. The perceptual realism of virtual reality is a narrative-virtual in The Matrix, which contrasts with the narrative-actual that exists outside the virtual reality world. A similar theme is explored in Alex Proyas’ Dark City (1998) but such cinematic ventures into the realm of virtual reality are limited to the contrast of narrative-virtual and narrative-actual, and do not engage with the technological-virtual form of VR technology itself. 14 Cook, 1985, p.64. 334 Conclusion The relations of actuality to the means of representation, and the implications of this relationship on the cultural construct of reality, provide a field of research that will not be displaced by advances in representational technology. The connection between narrative form, technological form and interpretive strategies is an area that requires continual revision with regard to cultural and technological variations. There is in this field a potential for researching the cultural construct in terms of the elements that influence its conformation: the technology of representation, the narrative form of texts, the actuality in which it is grounded, and the interpretive strategies that are applied to the text. The formation of this theoretical model accounts for the contributions of text, viewer-response, culture, actuality and author/writer. Alterations in technological or narrative form will enable a reappraisal of the processes by which the cultural construct of reality is produced, and ongoing research in this field will encourage an enhanced awareness of the significance of narrativization in the cultural domain. In Conclusion… The most significant findings of this research have resulted from the application of a new methodology for the analysis of actuality in the audio/visual text. Textual reference to actuality, and the influence of actuality on the form and content of texts have been demonstrated to consist of multifarious functions. The interpretive strategies brought by the viewer to the image have been shown to connect with the text through partial perceptual correspondence, and by the conventions of genre, which imply specific relations between the text and actuality. The methods of narrativization that are used affect the understanding of the actual event in the text, and the gradation of the extent to which actuality is deemed to be present in the text are subject to the codification of the narrative in which the actuality image is included. The notion of applying a gradated model of actuality in the text stands as the single most important analytical tool that has been posited by the research. An awareness of the stratification of virtualization enables an analyst to define the levels of mediation, and the characteristics of the image itself, in the textual actuality. The levels of subjective rendition that occur from actuality, to the text, and in the viewer’s interpretation, assure that the naivety of the Bazinian position is not adopted in a declaration of absolute correspondence of actuality with the image. A gradation of relations, however, in which the correspondences between image and actuality are variable, provides a suitable means of ascertaining the extent to which actuality has shaped, or contributed to the image, and, conversely, the measure of narrativization that has been applied to actuality. This model allows for the several hybrid forms that have emerged in the past decade, and the texts that have been chosen for analysis reveal the characteristics that have provided the pattern for subsequent texts. This thesis, then, posits a theoretical model that is applicable to the permeation of boundaries, of genre, of the text, and of the presumed delineation between actuality and the audio/visual representation. The narrativization of actuality is reciprocal to an actualization of narrative, and this area has been overlooked in the postmodern recoil against the naïve absolutism of earlier film theories. A major theme of this thesis is to redress this imbalance, and reevaluate the extreme polarization between postmodernism and previous positions. There is potential for a model of the 335 Conclusion interpretation of images and their relations with actuality that does not maintain an absolute separation of the image from its object, and the model posited in this thesis offers a means of accounting for multiple positions, without embracing the predication of any one theoretical perspective. The direction embarked upon has not been a strictly delineated adherence to a particular theorist, although Deleuze and Guattari have had a considerable influence on the shape of the research. This is due to the capacity of their various models to account for heterogeneity, and for pluralism, rather than enforcing a deterministic approach. In hindsight, the course of the research has been a line of flight that has been a self-reflexive excursion through boundaries, both theoretical and textual, and which has offered the author a sense of being on an ongoing voyage, which is by no means complete at the closure of this particular leg of the journey. The issues that have surfaced in the consideration of the narrativization of actuality have revealed a continuing need for the revision and rediscovery of the changes in text and theory, and the isomorphic nature of the cultural construct of reality. The ongoing nature of this field of research is well described by Deleuze and Guattari, who appreciate the heterogeneous connections and relations of any enunciative assemblage: Individual or group, we are traversed by lines, meridians, geodesics, tropics and zones marching to different beats and differing in nature. We said that we are composed of lines, three kinds of lines. Or rather, of bundles of lines, for each kind is multiple. We may be more interested in a certain line than in the others, and perhaps there is indeed one that is, not determining, but of greater importance … if it is there. For some of these lines are imposed on us from the outside, at least in part. Others sprout up somewhat by chance, from a trifle, why we will never know. Others can be invented, drawn, without a model and without chance: we must invent our lines of flight, if we are able, and the only way we can invent them is by effectively drawing them in our lives. 15 15 Deleuze and Guattari, op. cit., p.202. 336